Effects of mastery 5es constructivist teaching approach on secondary school students’ achievement and motivation to learn chemistry Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

Chemistry as a science subject equips learners with knowledge and science process skills necessary for industrialization. Kenya’s vision 2030 aims to transform the country into an industrialized, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens. Therefore, there is need to offer quality education that would lead to graduates with relevant skills, knowledge, and values to industrialize and transfonn the country. Critical analysis of Chemistry performance in Kenya since 2013 indicates a trend of below average performance. This may be attributed to the conventional teaching methods that are mainly teacher centered. The poor performance negatively impacts the attainment of Kenya’s vision 2030. Learner centered and constructivist-based teaching approaches such as Mastery learning and 5Es learning cycles have been found to promote students’ achievement in science subjects. Mastery 5Es constructivist teaching approach (M5EsA) is an inquiry-based learning approach that is a hybrid of Mastery learning and 5Es constructivist learning cycle. M5EsA may help address the problem of poor performance in Chemistry though its effects have not been determined in Rongai Sub-County. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of using Mastery 5Es constructivist teaching approach on students’ achievement and motivation to learn chemistry in Rongai Sub-County, Nakuru County, Kenya. Quasi experimental research was employed in which Solomon Four Non-Equivalent Control Group Design was used. Target population and accessible population were 6,762 and 3,780 respectively. Both purposive and stratified sampling techniques were used to obtain a sample of 303 students in co-educational schools. Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) and Students’ Motivation Questionnaire (SMQ) were used to collect data. Validation of the instruments was done by experts from the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Management of Egerton University. Piloting of the instruments was done in Njoro co-educational schools and reliability coefficients of 0.857 and 0.701 were obtained for CAT and SMQ respectively using KR 20 method and Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. Data collected was analyzed using SPSS version 21 computer software. Hypotheses were tested using t-Test, ANOVA and ANCOVA at critical alpha value of 0.05. The findings of this study indicated that M5EsA led to increased students’ achievement and motivation to learn Chemistry. This implies that if incorporated into teaching, M5EsA enhance students’ achievement and motivation to learn Chemistry. Therefore, it is recommended that secondary teachers’, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), Ministry of Education (MOE), Teacher education institutions and other education agencies should encourage the incorporation of this approach in teaching to enhance achievement in and motivation to learn Chemistry