Guided discovery teaching on performance of students in modes of heat energy transfer

Abstract

The concern of this study was to investigate the effect of guided-discovery learning strategy on the performance of students on mode of heat transfer. Students from two selected public senior high schools were used. The research was a quasi-experimental one and the main instruments for data collection were a 20-item multiple choice Physics Achievement Test drawn from West African Examination Council past questions on mode of Heat Transfer and a questionnaire. The questionnaire items were seven (7) in number and were related to students’ interest in physics. Three research questions were raised with three corresponding hypotheses tested. The size of the population was 350 senior high school two (SS2) physics students. The sample of the study was 90 SS2 physics students of which 63 were males and 27 were females taken from two schools. This comprises two science classes of forty-five (45) students from each school. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the schools from the target population. Excel was used to analyse the data obtained from the Pre and Post test data analysis. The outcome of the results revealed a significant difference in favour of those exposed to guided-discovery learning strategy compared to those taught using the traditional lecture method since their means were 2.19 and 3.55 respectively. It was deduced after the study that students interest in the study of Mode of Heat energy transfer was improved as well. It was recommended among others that physics teachers should make the teaching and learning of physics interactive and activity – based for the students, using strategy that all students could benefit from, irrespective of the ability levels of the individuals in the classroom.