Effect of Problem-Solving Instructional Technique on Secondary School Students' Achievement in Chemistry in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of Problem-Solving instructional technique on students' achievement in chemistry in Anambra State. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental specifically pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group design. The population of the study consisted of 541 senior secondary school two (SS2) chemistry students in Awka South local government area. A sample consisting of 87 chemistry students from the two sampled schools was used for the study. The design of the study was quasi-experimental. Chemistry Achievement Test on Electrolysis (CATE) was used as instrument for data collection. Reliability estimate of 0.79 was obtained on CATE using Kuder Richardson formula 20. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that problem-solving method is more effective in enhancing the students' achievement in chemistry than the conventional lecture method. There was no significant difference on students' achievement in chemistry due to gender. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that chemistry teachers should incorporate problem solving technique as one of the methods used in teaching chemistry in secondary school so as to accommodate functional student-centred and activity oriented instructional technique that will make chemistry students good problem solvers.