Influence of Gender, School Location and the use of Play-Simulation on the School Achievemnet in Chemistry

Abstract

This study looked at influence of gender and school location on achievement in chemistry when the innovative teaching method of play-simulation was used. Eight intact classes of (SS 1) students were used, each class from each of the eight sampled schools. Four schools were randomly selected from each of the groups of Boys and Girls only schools from four Local Government Areas. The school types were further grouped into rural-urban dichotomies four each with two from each school type. A sample of 177 students participated in the study (99 males and 78 females with 92 of them from urban schools and 85 from rural schools). The sampled schools comprised of two boys only schools and two girls only schools. Each of the two school types was selected from among urban and rural schools. Each intact class received chemistry lesson on organic chemistry after pre-test, each also participated in a post-test. A teacher made tested formed the research instrument. ANCOVA statistical test was used to test the two hypotheses and means were used to answer the research questions. The result showed that male students achieved significantly better than female students and also that the students from urban schools achieved significantly better than students from rural schools when playsimulation is used to teach SS1 chemistry students organic chemistry. Based on these findings, recommendations were made to the effect that school location and gender should not be a barrier in the application of innovative teaching strategies in science classes.

Keywords: Play-simulations, gender, location, school type, achievement