Abstract:
This study investigated the effect of Model Based Inquiry (MBI) instructional strategy on achievement, skills acquisition (creative and critical thinking) and interest of male and female pre-service chemistry teachers. Eight research questions and twelve null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. A quasi experimental (non-equivalent control group) design was adopted for the study. 174 (151 males and 23 females) pre-service chemistry teachers (NCE II) from two State Colleges of Education (SCOEs) in North West geo-political zone were involved in the study. Simple random sampling by balloting was used to select the two SCOE out of the seven SCOEs in the geo-political zone. The two randomly selected SCOEs were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. In each of the two selected colleges, all the NCE II chemistry students were used in their intact classes. The regular chemistry lecturers in each of the colleges who were earlier trained in the details of instructional sequences of MBI and Conventional Inquiry (CI) were involved in teaching the subjects. The experimental group was taught CHEM 221 using MBI instructional technique while the control group (CI) was taught the same course with CI approach. The colleges’ regular time tables were used for the period of 10 weeks. Four instruments were used for the study, these are: Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT), Creative Thinking Test (CTT), Test of Critical Thinking (TOCT) and Chemistry Interest Inventory (CII).The four instruments were subjected to face and content validation. The instruments were also trial tested and from the data collected, the reliability coefficients of the instruments were obtained. CAT had 0.81 using Kudder-Richardson (K-R20) while CTT had 0.79 using Kendal’s coefficient of concordance (W). TOCT had 0.85 using Pearson Product Moment correlation and CII had 0.87 using Cronbach’s Alpha. The validated instruments were administered as both pre and post tests while the data obtained were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions and the Analysis of Covarience (ANCOVA) for the hypotheses. The findings among others showed that teaching chemistry with MBI instructional technique enhanced pre-service teachers’ achievement, skills acquisition (creative and critical thinking) and interest better than CI approach. This will avail pre-service teachers the opportunity for the acquisition of sustainability related competencies required for the 21st century. Based on the findings, among others, it was recommended that the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) should incorporate MBI instructional technique in the National Certificate of Education (NCE) minimum standards.
