Effect of Ethnochemistry Practices on Secondary School Students’ Attitude Towards Chemistry

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to find out the effect of ethnochemistry practices on secondary school students’ attitude towards Chemistry.  The design of the study was pre-test post-test control group quasi-experimental design. Two grade 11 intact classes were assigned into experimental and control groups randomly. The total sample size comprised 113 students. To assess attitude of the student towards Chemistry, a chemistry attitude questionnaire was used. An independent samples t-test at an alpha (α) = .05 was conducted to analyze the results of the pre-test and post-test scores. There was a statistically significant difference in the post-test attitude scores for control (M=74.71, SD=13.90) and experimental (M=83.36, S=14.68) groups; t (111) = -3.22, p = 0.002.  Therefore, incorporating ethnochemistry practices in teaching chemistry was found to have a positive effect on enhancing secondary school students’ attitude towards Chemistry.

Keywords: Ethnochemistry, Conventional approach, Attitude