Effects of fireplace advance organizer teaching strategy on secondary school students’ motivation and achievement in chemistry in Baringo County, Kenya

Abstract

Chemistry is a fundamental science and is responsible for many of the materials used in modern society as well as developments and tests carried out in the field of medicine. However, Kenya’s secondary school students’ performance in chemistry has been poor. This poor performance has been attributed partially to teaching methods used in the classroom.Thus, there is need to seek teaching strategies that can improve students’ performance in chemistry and motivate them. The use of Advance Organizer Teaching Strategy may stimulate active thinking and facilitate the integration of new information into established schemas. However, it is not clear how a Fireplace Advance Organizer Teaching Strategy would affect students motivation and achievement in Baringo County. This study sought to address this issue. The study used Solomon Four Non- Equivalent Control Group Design. Simple random sampling was used to obtain 8 sample schools from the 19 County single sex secondary schools in Baringo County. The 8 sample schools were assigned to the experimental and control groups. Each sample school provided a Form Three class with 45 students; hence 360 subjects were involved. Experimental groups were taught using a Fireplace Advance Organizer Teaching Strategy (FAOTS) while control groups were taught using the conventional methods. Prior to the study, teachers and students from experimental group were trained on the use of FAOTS. Experimental group (E1) and control group (C1) were pretested using Students’ Motivation Questionnaire (SMQ) and Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) and all groups post-tested at the end of three weeks. The two instruments were pilot tested determine their reliability while their validity was ascertained by experts from the Deparment of Curriculum Instruction and Educational Management of Egerton University. The reliability coefficient for SMQ was 0.73 while that of the CAT was 0.98. Statistical Package for Social science (SPSS) was used for data analysis. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics, at α=0.05. The results of the study showed that students’ achievement and motivation are higher when FAOTS is used than when reqular methods are used. When FAOTS is used, boys’ in boys schools achieve higher motivation and achievement than girls’ in girls schools. Based on the findings, the study recommended chemistry teachers’ to revisit their teaching strategies and the teacher education programs to incorporate FAOTS in order to improve the learners’ performance.