ENHANCING STUDENTS' CREATIVITY AND CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING THROUGH DESIGN THINKING- BASED LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEETS IN GENERAL BIOLOGY

Design Thinking–Based Learning Activity Sheet (DT-LAS) is a supplementary learning resource that integrates an iterative, human-centered approach emphasizing empathy, ideation, prototyping, and testing to enhance creativity and conceptual understanding. This study examined the effectiveness of DT-LAS in improving the creativity and conceptual understanding of General Academic Strand students at Bukidnon National High School during the School Year 2025–2026, where thirty-six (36) students utilized DT-LAS and thirty-eight (38) students used Non-DT-LAS. A quasi-experimental research design employing a pretest-posttest format was used. An adapted creativity rubric and a validated 50-item teacher-made conceptual understanding test with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.94 served as instruments. Descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation were used to determine students’ levels of creativity and conceptual understanding, while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to identify significant differences between groups. Findings showed that students exposed to DT-LAS significantly improved in creativity, achieving very high levels in fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration, compared to moderate gains in the Non-DT-LAS group. ANCOVA confirmed a significant difference in creativity, indicating that DT-LAS effectively fosters higher-order creative thinking through engaging, learner-centered activities. Both groups showed slight improvement in conceptual understanding, but posttest scores remained within the Did Not Meet Expectations range, with no significant difference between them. While DT-LAS fosters creativity, structured guidance is needed to achieve measurable gains in biological understanding. With these findings, teachers are encouraged to adopt the Design Thinking–Based Learning Activity Sheet (DT-LAS) to foster creativity, innovation, and deeper conceptual learning among students.