The Effectiveness of the Four-component Instructional Design Model on the Academic Progress and Resilience of the Biology Course in Shad Application

The current research aimed to examine the effectiveness of the Four-Component Instructional Design Model on academic progress and resilience in the biology course of Shahryar city's male students using Shad application. We used an applied quasi-experimental design for this study. The statistical population comprised 1542 eleventh-grade students of experimental sciences in Shahryar city in 2021-2022. Convenience sampling was used to select 60 students who were divided into a control (n=30) and an experimental group (n=30). The data collection tools included a researcher-made test for academic progress and Samuels’ Academic Resilience Scale. Data were analyzed using Smirnov Kolmogorov, Pearson's correlation and paired t tests in SPSS. The results revealed a significant effect for the Four-Component Instructional Design Model on students’ academic progress in biology, but no significant effect on academic resilience in Shad Application as compared to the conventional method. It is suggested that the Four-Component Instructional Design Model and its relationship with motivation, academic progress, cognitive load and other influential factors be evaluated in both virtual and in-person classes in different grades. 
Introduction
Recent years have witnessed the closure of educational centers due to the outbreak of COVID-19, as well as changing conventional in-person education to virtual education. Designing electronic educational courses require mastery over different learning theories. One of these theories used in psychology and education is constructivism (Sawyer, 2008). Most of the activities and technologies used in electronic learning are based on behaviorism, and few are based on constructivism (Barkhoda et al., 2017). To this end, a Four-Component Instructional Design Model was developed for teaching different scientific subjects including complicated subjects that aimed to help educational course developers build educational courses for complicated subjects (van Merriënboer, 2019). Academic progress is one of the important turning points that determine the quality of life. Poor academic progress can lead to lower life expectancy, poorer health and poorer immunity during diseases (Raghupathi, 2020). Furthermore, resilience is among the essential internal factors required for academic success (Tarverdizadeh, 2014). Najafi Nejad Moshizi et al., in their research, concluded that the Four-Component Instructional Design Model increases learning and academic motivation in students. In their systematic meta-analysis research, Costa et al. (2020) reported the increasing application of the Four-Component Instructional Design Model both in virtual and in-person educational settings. Given the review of literature, Shad Application is a start-up platform that Iran’s Education Ministry used for teaching at different grades. Therefore, the research question asks how effective is the Four-Component Instructional Design Model compared to the conventional method in learning complex subjects and academic progress and the level of academic resilience of the high school students in the biology course in Shad Application.
Methodology
The purpose of the research is to measure the effectiveness of the Four-Component Instructional Design Model and the conventional teaching method on the academic progress and academic resilience of the male students of Shahryar city in Shad Application. This research used applied quasi-experimental research method with a pre-test post-test design and control and experimental groups. The statistical population comprised 1542 students in Shahriar city, of whom 60 eleventh-grade students were selected by convenience sampling and assigned to a control (n=30) and an experimental group (n=30). The control group underwent conventional teaching while the experimental group received four component model via Shad application. Academic progress was determined through a researcher-made test for the reproduction chapter in the 11th grade biology book (Chapter 7). The validity of the researcher-made questions was obtained between 0.6 and 0.9, and their reliability was determined through Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.86. Students' academic resilience was determined using Samuels’ Academic Resilience Scale (2004) with a reliability between 0.63 and 0.77. First, both groups took a pre-test. After that, reproduction lessons were taught to the control group via conventional method for 7 sessions while the experimental group was taught via the Four-Component Instructional Design Model for 9 sessions in Shad Application. Finally, both groups took a post-test, and filled out Samuels’ Academic Resilience Scale again. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, frequency table, and standard deviation), and inferential statistics of Kolmogorov Smirnov test, Pearson’s correlation, and paired t test in SPSS version 24.
Results
To answer the question whether there is a difference between the two teaching methods, we used t test to compare their mean scores
As seen in Table 1, the hypothesis of equality of variance is rejected for academic progress due to p-value<0.05, therefore the data in the second row was used for difference in means. According to the findings, the Four-Component Instructional Design Model had a greater impact on the academic progress than the conventional method (P=0.003).
Table 2 summarizes the findings regarding the impact of the conventional method and the Four-Component Instructional Design Model on students’ academic resilience
Pearson’s test revealed no significant relationship between students' academic resilience and academic progress both in the conventional method and the Four-Component Instructional Design Model group (P-value > 0.05).
Discussion and conclusion
In the present study, the conventional method and the Four-Component Instructional Design Model had a positive effect on students’ academic progress, and t test showed that the four-component model had a greater effect on students’ academic progress. A significant difference was observed in the academic progress scores (pre-test vs post-test) with P<0.05 in the Four-Component Instructional Design Model group. These results are in line with the research of Heydari Momqani and Hosseinpour (2020), Najafinejad Mshizi et al. (2019), Ahmadi et al. (2019), Moradi et al. (2018), Salari and Amirtimori (2016), Melo and Miranda (2015) and Daniel et al. (2018). Furthermore, the obtained results match van Merriënboer’s theory that the Four-Component Instructional Design Model is problem-oriented and can be used in teaching complex skills (van Merriënboer, 2019).
 The current research, which focused on theoretical subjects, is inconsistent with the research of Abazari et al. (2021), which focused on practical subjects. They investigated the Four-Component Instructional Design Model for problem-solving skills such as content production by software, which revealed no effects on the desired skill (Abazari et al., 2021). However, it was effective on theoretical subjects as in the present research.
The results showed that education none of the methods used in Shad Application had any effects on academic resilience with no significant difference between the two groups.
It is suggested that the Four-Component Instructional Design Model be used in different grades in person and online, and the level of motivation, cognitive load, academic progress, academic resilience and other factors be investigated.