Effect of analogy approach on the concepts of rates of chemical reactions on students’ achievement and attitude

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of analogical instruction as compared to the lecture approach on concepts of rates of chemical reactions on grade 11 students’ achievement and attitude. A quasi-experimental posttest only control group design setting was utilized, to compare the effectiveness of two teaching methods, with 72 students in the fall semesters of two consecutive academic years. Two existing classrooms  students, taught by the same teacher at a government school (Yehibret Fire Preparatory School) in Wolliso Zone, Oromiya region in Ethiopia, were categorized as a control group (n=35) in 2017/18 and an experimental group (n=37) in 2018/19 academic years. In control group (CG), students were taught in lecture/ usual way of teaching chemistry while the experimental group (EG) students were received the treatment based on the six steps in ‘Teaching With Analogy’ (TWA) model with ‘Focus–Action-Reflection’ (FAR) guide and during the analogical instruction fourteen analogies were used. An equal amount of instruction was given over a period of five weeks (two hours per week, total 10 hours) for both groups and the concepts of rate of reaction involving definition of reaction rate, effects of nature of reactants, surface area, concentration, temperature and catalyst on the rate of reaction have been studied. In both groups, rate of reaction concepts test (RRCT) consisted of 20 two-tier multiple choice questions  administered as a post-test after each instruction. A semi-structured interview was also conducted to six EG and six CG students (who selected using stratified sampling technique) to have detail information on their conceptual understanding of rates of reactions, however, six EG students were also interviewed to assess the effect of the analogy approach on students’ attitude towards the concepts of rates of reactions. Only the experimental group students were performed the students’ generated analogy worksheet. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20 software was used to analyze the quantitative data of the study. The independent samples t-test analysis of the post-tests scores of both groups and students’ interviews showed that the analogy-based learning was effective means in enhancing students’ achievement and attitude towards the concepts of rate of reaction. Therefore, it can be said that high school chemistry teachers can often use analogical instruction to improve  students’ conceptual understanding and attitude towards the concepts of rates of reactions.