Effectiveness of Guided-Inquiry Laboratory Experiments on Senior Secondary Schools Students Academic Achievement in Volumetric Analysis

Abstract

The persistent poor performance of students in practical tests in chemistry has been blamed on poor choice of teaching methods and poor understanding of basic concepts in qualitative and quantitative analysis. The purpose of this study therefore was to investigate the effects of guided-inquiry laboratory experiments on Senior Secondary School students’ academic achievement in Volumetric Analysis. The design for the study was a pre-test post-test control group quasi-experimental design. The instrument used for data collection was Volumetric Analysis Achievement Test. The statistical tools used for data analysis in the study were means, t-test and Analysis of Covariance. The findings from the study showed that guided-inquiry laboratory experiments have significant effect on students offering chemistry’ academic achievement than the traditional teaching method since it motivated the students and this was positively reflected in their chemistry mean achievement scores. The findings also revealed that gender has no significant effect on academic achievement of students exposed to Chemistry through guided-inquiry laboratory experiments. This showed that males and females benefited significantly from the instructional approaches; since it was student-activity oriented which made them engaged in in-depth critical thinking and process skills. The findings of this study imply that guided-inquiry laboratory experiments had much more effect on students’ academic achievement than the traditional teaching method. Chemistry teachers should therefore incorporate it into the teaching-learning process since it developed students scientific and practical skills, motivated the students and fostered the spirit of competitiveness among them; and its effectiveness is not being limited by gender.