EFFECTS OF TEACHER MADE MODELS AND STUDENTS MADE MODELS ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND INTEREST IN ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

This study was carried out to investigate the effects of teacher made models and students made models on the achievement and interest of senior secondary school II (SSII) students in organic chemistry. The study also investigated the effect of gender on academic achievement and interest of SS (II) students in Organic Chemistry. Four research questions and four hypotheses were formulated for the study. The researcher reviewed related literature. A quasi-experimental design, specifically, the non-equivalent control group design involving four intact classes were used. The population of the study comprised 2960 Senior Secondary II (SSII) students in the forty-eight secondary schools offering chemistry in Nsukka Zone. The sample for the study consisted of 140 senior secondary II chemistry students from two co-educational schools in Nsukka Local Government Area. A purposive random sampling technique was used to select two co-educational schools that have two chemistry intact classes. The classes were assigned to the two experimental groups, Teacher Made Model (TMM) and Students Made Model (SMM) by balloting. The regular chemistry teachers of the selected schools were trained and used for the study. The instruments for data collection included the Organic Chemistry Achievement Test (OCAT) and the Organic Chemistry Interest Inventory (OCII). The “OCAT” with a reliability Coefficient of 0.97 and the “OCII” of 0.77 were developed by the researcher and validated by two experts in Measurement and Evaluation and one in Education Chemistry. The data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The major findings of the study include the following: The use of models had a significant effect on academic achievement and interest of students in organic chemistry; the students taught organic chemistry using students made models performed significantly better than their counterparts taught with the teacher-made models; students taught using students-made models showed greater interest in organic chemistry than those taught using the teacher made models; Gender has no significant effect on the achievement and interest of students in Organic Chemistry; there was no significant interaction effect of model type and gender on the students’ achievement and interest in Organic Chemistry. The implications of these findings with respect to students, teachers, Ministry of Education as well as tertiary institutions were presented. Based on these, it was recommended that the application of students-made models for teaching concepts in organic chemistry should be included in the school curriculum.