Abstract

This study investigated the effect of Elaborative interrogation on secondary schoolII students’ interest and academic achievement in Chemistry concepts. The study which adopted a quasi-experimental, pretest posttest non-equivalent control group research design was carried out in Aguata local Government area of Anambra state. A sample of 73 Secondary School II students drawn from two public co-educational Secondary Schools in Aguata Local Government area of the State was used for the study using purposive sampling technique. One intact class each was sampled and assigned from the sampled schools. In other words, one of the schools was assigned as control class while the other was assigned as the experimental class or group. Data were collected using a 33-multiple choice questions titled: Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) and a 21-item Chemistry Interest Scale (CIS). The instruments were developed by the researcher and subjected to face and content validation. The validation was carried out by three experts, one in Chemistry and one in measurement and evaluation and one from psychology, all from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State Nigeria. The CAT instrument was subjected to item analysis to determine the content validation. The reliability test analysis of CAT was determined using Kudder Richardson (K-R₂₀) formula to determine the internal consistency which yielded an index of 0.81 while that of CIS was tested for stability and internal consistency using Pearson product moment correlation and Cronbach alpha statistic which yielded 0.88 and 0.85 respectively. Before and after the treatment that lasted for six weeks, the copies of the instrument were administered to the students by their regular Chemistry teachers who carried out the treatments. The data collected from the students were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null-hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study showed among others that elaborative interrogation teaching method had statistically significant effect on students’ interest and achievements in Chemistry concepts than the use of lecture method. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that teachers should use elaborative interrogation teaching method more regularly in teaching Chemistry concepts to the students and reduce the use of conventional lecture method all the time.