Effect of Inquiry-Based Strategy on the Acquisition of Process Skills and Achievement in Chemistry among Senior Secondary Students in Kogi State
Abstract
This study investigated the effect of Inquiry-Based Strategy on the Acquisition of Process Skills and Achievement in Chemistry Among Senior Secondary Students in Kogi state, Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses. The population of the study comprised all SS II Chemistry students in Kogi State. Simple random sampling and purposive sampling procedure were used. The instruments used for data collection were Science Process Skills Acquisition Checklist (SPSAC), and Chemistry Practical Achievement Test (CPAT). The reliability of CPAT was determined using Kuder Richardson formula (Kr-21) which gave an index of 0.88, while the internal consistency of SPSAC was determined using Cronbach Alpha which gave an index of 0.82. The null hypotheses were tested using t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The research questions were answered using mean score and standard deviation. The findings from this study indicated that; there was significant difference between the mean acquisition of process skills and mean achievement scores of experimental group taught chemistry using inquiry-based strategy and their counterpart in control group. The study concluded that inquiry-based strategy is a potent and innovative teaching approach hence it enhanced their achievement on acquisition of science process skills in this study. It was therefore recommended that government should encourage science teachers the opportunity to use inquiry-based teaching strategy in the teaching of Chemistry.
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