Improving Senior Secondary School Students’ Performance in Chemistry through Laboratory-Based Teaching Strategy

Abstract

This study investigated ‘Improving Senior Secondary School Students Performance in Chemistry through Laboratory-Based Teaching Strategy” The study adopted pretest-posttest quiazi-experimental design. The population for the study comprised of all the senior secondary school students in public senior secondary schools in Ado Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Nigeria. The sample consisted 90 SSS 2 students selected from four Junior - Secondary Schools in Ado Local Government in Ekiti State.  Laboratory –Based Chemistry Teaching Strategy was employed by the teacher as treatment in the experimental group while the control group was left with the normal classroom teaching.  The Instrument for the study was a self-developed tagged “Laboratory-Based Chemistry Achievement Test”. This Instrument was validated and used to generate the data for the study.  The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation and graphs   while   the hypotheses generated were tested using inferential statistics of t-test and analysis of Covance (ANCOVA). Multiple classification analysis (MCA) was used to sort for the variable that contributed to   differences among groups. The result of the study revealed that, the use of Laboratory-Based Teaching Strategy improves students Problem-Solving skills, rate of learning skills and methods Scientific enquiry. It was also revealed that, there was a positive improvement in the performance of students that were taught chemistry using Laboratory-Based Teaching Strategy compared with those in the conventional group. The results of the study also showed   that, there was no gender difference in the performance of students taught with the Laboratory-Based teaching Strategy and those in the conventional group.  Based on the findings, appropriate recommendations were made.