EFFECT OF INTERACTIVE SIMULATION INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL II (SS2) CHEMISTRY STUDENTS IN ABIA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of Interactive Simulation Instructional Strategy on the Academic Achievement of Senior Secondary School II (SS2) Chemistry Students in Abia State, Nigeria. Three research questions and corresponding three hypotheses respectively guided the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental, pretest posttest non-equivalent control group research design and was carried out in Abia state. A sample of 75 secondary school (SSII) students drawn from two public co-educational secondary schools in the State was used for the study using multi-stage procedure. One intact class each was sampled in each of the two sampled schools which were assigned into one experimental and one control group. Data were collected using a 50-multiple choice questions titled: Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT). The instrument was developed by the researchers and subjected to face and content validation. The validation was carried out by three experts, two from Chemistry Education and one in measurement and evaluation all from Department of Science Education, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia state Nigeria. The instrument was tested for reliability and subjected to analysis using Kudder Richardson (K-R₂₀) formula to determine the internal consistency which yielded an index of 0.78. Before and after the treatment that lasted for four weeks, the copies of the instrument were administered to the students by their regular Chemistry teachers. The data collected from the students were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null-hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.  Based on the analyses, the findings revealed that students taught Chemistry using Interactive Simulation strategy achieved significantly higher than those taught using lecture method. Gender had no significant influence on students’ achievement, and there was no significant interaction effect of gender and teaching strategy on students’ achievement in Chemistry.