Effect of first principle approach on students’ achievements in the determination of limiting reagents in reactions

Abstract

A quasi experiment research was conducted to find out the effect of first principle instructional approach, on students’ achievements in the determination of limiting reagents in chemical reactions. Convenient sampling technique was employed to select 120 Second year science students from Lamp Lighter and Wiawso Colleges of Education all in the Western North region of Ghana. The instruments used to gather data in this study were questionnaire and tests. The internal consistency of the items on the instruments was verified by examining the coefficient alpha of the various items in the instrument using the scores from the pilot-testing to determine the reliability. The overall reliability coefficient alpha for each of the two (2) test instruments constructed was found to be 0.70. Test statistics value of -4.941 which was less than the critical value of 1.980 or probability value, the null hypothesis was rejected. Thus there was a statistically significant difference in the students’ performance. A careful study of the analysis of research questions shows that students appreciated the use of the first principles, in general students ' performance in the test, based on the first principle approach, was better than actual mole ratio and stoichiometric mole ratio. The control group had a mean score of 44.06% whiles the experimental group had a mean score of 58.23%. From the foregoing, it concluded that the first principle approach helped the students to deduce the limiting reactants in chemical reactions better than the other approaches. Among other recommendations, it was suggested that teachers consider the use of first principle approaches during instructions for the benefit of the students. It was also suggested that further research be done on this topic by other researchers in other places of the