Effectiveness of Hands-On Activities to Develop Chemistry Learners’ Curiosity in Community Secondary Schools in Tanzania: Research Article

Esther Kibga; John Sentongo; Emmanuel Gakuba

doi:10.36681/

Authors

Esther Kibga PhD student UR-CE, African Center of Exellence for Innovative Teaching and Learning of Mathematics and Science https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2020-8936
John Sentongo Makerere University- Department of Science, Technical and Vocational Education (DSTVE), P.O. Box 7062 Kampala, Uganda. Email: sentongoj@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8693-2639
Emmanuel Gakuba University of Rwanda-College of Education-Chemistry Department, (UR-CE), P.O Box 55 Rwamagana, Rwanda.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36681/

Keywords:

Hands- on activities, learners’ curiosity, learning chemistry.

Abstract

Learners’ curiosity is among the affective domains of learning that has a great potential to take learning to higher levels and meet the demands of the 21st-century teaching and learning process. This paper assesses how hands-on activities performed using learning materials from learners’ immediate environment can enhance learners’ curiosity in chemistry lessons. Observing students’ hands-on activities during chemistry lessons enabled researchers to monitor the development and expression of curiosity in the actual learning environment. The study involved 169 senior three chemistry students purposively selected from three intact science classes in three community secondary schools from Dar es salaam, Tanzania. We performed a Design-Based Research (DBR) in a convergent mixed method design following a pragmatic stance. We found that learners can better express their curiosity when they collaboratively learn using materials that they are familiar with. Besides, the paired samples t-test performed on the means curiosity indicators from pre and post-intervention Students Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SSRQ) gave t (127) = 22.25, p<0.0005, and the effect size of 0.80 while pre and post-intervention Teacher Rating Scale (TRS) shown t (168) = 13.427, p<0.0005 and effect size of 0.62. Based on these findings it is recommended that educators should put learners at the center of every step of the learning process through hands-on activities to stimulate their learning curiosity.

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Author Biographies

John Sentongo, Makerere University- Department of Science, Technical and Vocational Education (DSTVE), P.O. Box 7062 Kampala, Uganda. Email: sentongoj@gmail.com

Dr John Sentongo is a lecture at Makerere University, School of Education, Department of Science, Technical and Vocational Education (DSTVE). Kampala, Uganda. His research interests and area of expertise are in Teacher training, Curriculum development, Educational research.
Emmanuel Gakuba, University of Rwanda-College of Education-Chemistry Department, (UR-CE), P.O Box 55 Rwamagana, Rwanda.

Dr Emmanuel Gakuba is a lecture at the University of Rwanda-College of Education in the Chemistry Department (UR-CE). His expertise is in environmental analytical chemistry, analytical chemistry instrumentation, chromatography, mass spectrometry, water analysis, extraction, and general chemistry.

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