Influence of Science Process Skills Teaching Approach on Secondary School Students’ Achievement in Chemistry in Kisii South Sub-County, Kenya

Everlyne Kerubo Okero, Dr. Peter O. Nyakan & Dr. Enock Obuba
Kisii University, Kenya
Email: everlyneokero@gmail.com

Abstract: This study focused on the influence of Science Process Skills Teaching Approach (SPSTA) on secondary school students’ achievement in Chemistry. The science process skills selected for the study include experimenting, observation and classification. The study sought to find out whether the achievement of students who are taught through SPSTA is statistically different from that of students who are taught using the regular teaching (RT) methods in Chemistry. The achievement of the boys and the girls who are taught using SPSTA in Chemistry was compared. The study employed quasiexperimental research design. The sampling frame consisted of County co-educational schools of Kisii South Sub-County. Simple random sampling techniques were used to select four schools for the study. Two schools formed the experimental groups and another two schools formed the control groups. A sample of 366 students in the four schools was selected. SPSTA was used to teach the experimental group while the control group was taught using the regular teaching (RT) methods. All groups were taught the chemistry content ‘Salts’. Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) was used for data collection. Data was analyzed using one-way ANOVA, ANCOVA and t-test. Hypotheses were accepted at α = .05. Results of the study show that SPSTA improved students’ achievement in chemistry. The boys and girls exposed to SPSTA performed equally well in Chemistry. The researcher concludes that SPSTA is suitable to use for teaching boys and girls in Chemistry, hence teachers should be encouraged to use SPSTA for teaching Chemistry to improve the students’ achievement.