Managing Students’ Attitude towards Physics through Problem Solving Instructional Strategy: A Study Caried Out in Senior Secondary Schools in Makurdi Metropolis

Abstract

The study was designed to further clarify the claims by several authors that methods of instruction could change students’ attitude towards physics. It was the belief of the author that if students’ were allowed to develop higher cognitive processes through problem-solving instructional strategy, their attitude towards physics might change. The topic of the study is managing student’s attitude towards physics through problem-solving instructional strategy. The area of the study is all senior secondary schools in Makurdi metropolis of Benue State. 210 students were randomly selected from six (6) secondary schools in Makurdi for the study. A quasi-experimental research design was used for the study. Two groups were developed for the study, an experimental group and a control group. Problem-solving strategies were used with the experimental group, while the control group was instructed using traditional teaching methods. The data collected was analyzed using frequency, simple percentage, mean, standard deviation and ANOVA while t-test was used to test the research hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. The findings indicated that students in the experimental group made more positive improvement in attitude towards physics than the control group, those in the PST group showed more positive attitude towards the learning of physics followed by those in the SLT group and a poor attitude scale was observed in the control group.If problem-solving instructional strategy could draw many students to offering of physics in secondary schools in Makurdi metropolis, it would be necessary for physics teachers to adopt this method so as to solve the problem of many students withdrawing from physics course at the secondary school level. This method can also be adopted and be more efficient in other country especially those having the same educational system like Nigeria.