Interdisciplinary Instructional Approaches and Chemistry Achievement of Senior Secondary Students in Kwande LGA, Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the effect of interdisciplinary instructional approaches on the chemistry achievement of senior secondary students in Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria, using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group research design. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The population comprised all Senior Secondary Two (SS2) chemistry students in Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State. A sample of 120 students drawn from four intact classes across two purposively selected secondary schools participated in the study, comprising 60 students in the experimental group and 60 students in the control group. Data were collected using the Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT), a 50-item multiple-choice achievement test, which yielded a Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) reliability coefficient of 0.84 following validation by experts in Chemistry Education and Educational Measurement and Evaluation. The study assessed the influence of interdisciplinary instructional approaches on students' chemistry achievement, examined differences in chemistry achievement between students taught using interdisciplinary instructional approaches and those taught using the conventional lecture method, investigated gender differences in achievement among students exposed to the interdisciplinary instructional approach, and determined the improvement in students' achievement following the instructional intervention. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and paired sample t-test statistics were used to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that interdisciplinary instructional approaches significantly improved students' chemistry achievement compared with the conventional lecture method. The findings further showed that there was no significant difference in chemistry achievement between male and female students taught using interdisciplinary instructional approaches, while students exposed to the instructional approach recorded a significant improvement between their pretest and posttest achievement scores. The study concludes that interdisciplinary instructional approaches constitute an effective learner-centred pedagogical strategy for improving students' achievement in chemistry irrespective of gender. It was recommended that chemistry teachers should adopt interdisciplinary instructional approaches in classroom instruction, teacher education institutions should incorporate interdisciplinary instructional strategies into pre-service teacher education programmes, and the Benue State Ministry of Education should organize regular professional development programmes to equip chemistry teachers with the knowledge and skills required for the effective implementation of interdisciplinary instructional approaches.