Learning Strategies, Age, Gender and School-location as Predictors of Students’ Achievement in Chemistry in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of cooperative and individualized learning strategies age, gender and school-location on Students’ achievement in chemistry. 370 Senior Secondary, SS II students from six public secondary schools participated in this study. The study adopted the 3x2x2x2 factorial pretest posttest quasi-experimental and control design. The topic of instruction was thermochemistry on which a 35-item multiple choice chemistry achievement test, CAT instrument was developed with a cronbach alpha reliability value of 0.78 and used for data collection. Mean, ANOVA, t-test and regression were the statistical tools for data analyses. Learning strategies was found to have significant effect on students’ achievement in chemistry. The treatment strategies were found to be better strategies for higher achievement in chemistry as confirmed by the Scheffe’s multiple comparison ad-hoc analysis in the following trend of cooperative > Individualized > conventional learning strategies. They are therefore; recommend for adoption and implementation to school heads and science teachers in particular at the beginning on trial basis and subsequent incorporation into the system. Age, gender and school-location were individually at very close average mean margins and combined, found to have significant effect on students’ achievement in chemistry. Relatively, the trend of effect was as follows; learning strategies>school-location>gender>age. However, age relatively did not significant effect.

Keywords: Learning strategies, Age, Gender, School-location, and Chemistry Achievement.