Comparative Effects of two Practical Chemistry Teaching Strategies on Acquisition of Practical Skills and Interest by Students of Different Cognitive Styles

Abstract

Students’ acquisition of appropriate scientific and technological skills is necessary to cope with the challenges in the economy. Hence education and training system that respond adequately to skill acquisition could contribute to the effort to overcome growing unemployment and marginalization on the majority of the populace. In Nigeria, students’ acquisition of practical skills has continue to dwindle and decline. Hence, this study investigated the comparative effects of two practical Chemistry teaching strategies (i.e demonstration plus individual laboratory work and demonstration plus group work) on acquisition of practical skills and interest by students of different cognitive styles. Twelve research questions and twelve hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study was carried out in Ankpa education zone of Kogi State. The study adopted non-equivalent control group design. The target population of the study was all the SS3 students in 68 secondary schools in the zone. A sample of 84 SS3 Chemistry students comprising of (47) males and (37) females participated in the study. The simple random sampling by balloting was carried out in three stages, namely; zonal level, local government level and school level. One zone cut of the three education zones in Kogi east senatorial district was selected by simple random sampling. A second round of simple random was used to select two local government areas out of the three local government areas in the zone. Purposive random sampling was carried out to select two secondary schools one from each of the two zones selected. All the SS3 Chemistry students of the two selected schools participated in the study. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for answering the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used for testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study found out that, cognitive styles have significant influence P<0.05 on students mean scores in acquisition of practical Chemistry skills. Gender does not have significant influence P>0.05 on mean scores of students in Chemistry practical skills. Cognitive styles have significant influence P<0.05 on students’ interest mean scores in Chemistry. Gender does not have significant influence P>0.05 on interest mean scores of students in Chemistry practical skills of students taught Chemistry using individual laboratory work and those taught using group work. There is a significant difference P<0.05 in the mean interest scores of students taught Chemistry using individual laboratory work and those taught using group work. There is significant interaction effect P>0.05 of teaching strategies and gender on students acquisition of practical Chemistry skills. The study found that there is significant interaction effect of teaching strategies and cognitive styles on students acquisition of practical skills. There is no significant interaction effect P>0.05 of teaching strategies and gender on students mean interest score in practical Chemistry. The study found that there is no significant interaction effect P>0.05 of teaching strategies and cognitive styles on students’ mean interest scores in practical Chemistry. The study found that there is no significant interaction effect P>0.05 of cognitive styles and gender on students acquisition of practical Chemistry skill. The study found that there is no significant interaction effect P>0.05 of gender and cognitive styles on students’ mean interest scores in practical Chemistry. It was recommended that Chemistry teachers should make it a point of duty to discover the cognitive styles of their students and organize their lessons, especially practical lesson in such way that students of all cognitive styles would benefit optimally.