Comic worksheets for integrated disaster risk reduction learning in the subject of Geography

Abstract

Indonesian students have limited visual learning capacity. Low literacy of such students has gained the researcher’s attention in developing their literacy through comic worksheets. The researcher created comic worksheets with blank speech bubbles to help high school students build their conceptual framework about disaster risk mitigation. This study attempts to investigate the effectiveness of comic worksheets in helping high school students learn disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the subject of Geography. This study followed the research and development (R&D) approach to develop comic worksheets with blank speech bubbles. A paired sample t-test was used to analyse the mean difference between the pre-and post-test scores of 103 students. The results show a significant difference between both means. It indicates that using comic worksheets could improve student learning outcomes. It could also effectively be used as an assessment instrument for the students’ affective aspects. Dialogues among comic characters compiled by students record their attitudes and behaviour in their everyday life. Collaboration between teachers, learning media developers, and artists is needed to create comic packages for learning Geography.