The effects of an inquiry-based teaching approach on the Grade 10 learners' conceptual understanding of chemical change topic in Physical Sciences

Abstract

The study used both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data. The quantitative part of the study used quasi-experimental design, involving pretest and posttest non-equivalent groups to determine the effects of the 5E inquiry-based approach on Grade 10 learners’ conceptual understanding of chemical change topic in Physics, with the view to improve their performance in the subject. Meanwhile the qualitative aspect involved focus group interviews to determine the perception of the learners on their learning of chemical change under the inquiry-based and traditional-based learning environments. There were 142 Grade 10 Physical Sciences learners who participated in the study, 73 of which were in the experimental group, and 69 of which were assigned to the control group. Moreover, 16 learners from the control group and 16 from the experimental group who were conveniently sampled participated in the interviews. Quantitative data from the pretest and posttest, as well as qualitative data from focus group interviews, were gathered to test the null hypothesis of the study and to answer the research questions, formulated as: there is no statistical significance difference in conceptual understanding of chemical change between Grade 10 learners taught using inquiry-based approaches and those taught using the traditional teaching methods in the posttest results (tested at significance level α=0.05). The null hypothesis was rejected, as the p value showed that p=0.000<0.05. The study found that, despite the improvement in the level of conceptual understanding in the posttests of both the experimental and control groups, learners taught using the inquiry based approach have a higher level of conceptual understanding than those taught using the traditional teaching approach. The interviews also found that learners taught using the inquiry-based teaching method perceive their learning environment as one that allows active learning, encourages group and individual learning, and promotes knowledge gain. The study posits that, instead of relying on traditional teaching methods, science teachers can use properly planned traditional methods together with inquiry methods in their lessons especially in cases when it is not possible to use inquiry-based teaching methods alone.