ANALYSIS OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCED DIFFICULTY IN SCIENCE PROCESS SKILLS ACQUISITION IN CHEMISTRY
Author: JACK, UZEZI GLADYS
Abstract
The general objective of the study was to determine Chemistry students’ perceived difficulty in the acquisition of science process skills. Seven research questions and seven hypotheses guided the study. The design adopted for the study was descriptive survey design. The population of the study comprised all senior secondary school III (SS III), Chemistry students in the three senatorial districts of both Adamawa and Taraba States in Nigeria. Seven hundred and twenty (720) respondents were involved in the study through multi-stage random sampling. Twenty students were randomly selected from each of the 36 schools. The research instrument was a test called ‘Science Process Skills Knowledge Test in Chemistry’ (SPSKTC). The test consisted of Section A which demanded personal information on the school and respondent (bio data); and Section B which consisted of 70 objective questions having 15 items on test of knowledge on science process skills. The items on SPSKTC were extracted from WAECSSCE Alternative to practical Chemistry past questions (2002-2011). The SPSKTC was validated by three experts in science education, two in test and measurement; and two secondary school Chemistry teachers. The data obtained was subjected to Kuder Richardson formula 21 to obtain the correlation coefficient of 0.78, which was considered adequate for the study. The SPSKTC was administered with the help of the Chemistry teachers and the researcher. After the administration of the SPSKTC, students’ answers were collected and scored. The percentages, frequencies, means scores and standard deviations were used to collate the data. The level of difficulty of a particular process skill was determined by the value of means as follows: means scores less than 50 (< 50) were classified as difficult, and means scores equal to or above 50 (≥ 50) as simple. The hypotheses were tested using means and t-test at t ≤ 0.05 level of significance. Hypotheses 1- 7 were tested with descriptive t-test statistic using SPSS 16.0 statistical package. Each student was scored on each of the science process skills before the individual scores were aggregated to form a composite score for each student The major findings of the study showed that 12 science process skills (80%) were found difficult by students in acquiring which includes: observing, identifying/controlling variables, inferring, predicting, using number relationships, formulating hypotheses, experimenting, communicating, recording, defining operationally, interpreting data, and classifying; with a total mean scores of 39.35out of the 15 science process skills. The study also indicated that sex, school location and school type have negligible influence on students’ acquisition of science process skills; while large class size, students’ negative attitude towards Chemistry and laboratory inadequacy have great influence on students’ acquisition of science process skills. The study concluded that most students in Nigerian schools experience difficulty in the acquisition of process skills, arising from the persistent use of the lecture method of teaching Chemistry which is not student-activityoriented. Based on the findings, recommendations were made amongst which are reduction of student-teacher ratio in schools, training of teachers on science process skills and equipping all secondary school laboratories to enable teachers adopt methods that lead students to have the appropriate skills.
Supervisor: Prof. Emperor Kpangban
