ABSTRACT

This study investigated the influence of cognitive styles on student academic achievement and interest in chemistry in Abia State. The design of the study was expost facto research design. Six research questions were answered and six null hypothesis tested at 0.05 level of significance in the study. The related literature for the study was reviewed under three subheadings; conceptual framework, theoretical framework and related empirical studies. The conceptual framework reviewed were; concept of chemistry as a secondary school subject, concept of cognitive styles, academic achievement of chemistry students and interest in teaching and learning process. The theoretical framework reviewed for the study were; Anderson’s Cognitive Development Theory and Personality Trait Theory. The related empirical studies reviewed were study on cognitive styles and achievement in sciences, study on gender and achievement in sciences, study on gender and interest in sciences and study on interactive effect of gender, cognitive styles and academic achievements of science students. The population of the study was 7,833 public senior secondary two (SSII) students in Abia State. The sample was 303 (123 boys and 180 girls) students from six intact classes of six public coeducational secondary schools in Ohafia education zone in Abia State. Three instruments were used for collection of data; grouped embedded figure test were used to group the student into different cognitive styles; dependent and independent cognitive styles; chemistry achievement tests and Chemistry Interest Scale. The instruments were validated by three experts one in measurement and evaluation, two in chemistry education of MOUAU. The reliability coefficients of the instruments were 0.72 and 0.89 respectively. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviations while the hypotheses were tested using t-test and analyzing of variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significant. Findings revealed that, there is no significant difference between the mean achievement scores of field dependent and field independent cognitive style students in chemistry; there is no significant difference in the mean interest response of field dependent and field independent cognitive styles in chemistry among other things. It was concluded that the knowledge of cognitive styles of students in classroom during teaching and learning of chemistry will help in increasing student’s achievement and interest. Based on this, it was recommended among other things that chemistry curriculum should be planned in such a way that the cognitive styles of students will be monitored by the teacher. The education authorities should encourage chemistry teachers and teacher education instruction to make cognitive style part of the curriculum content. This will help in effective teaching and learning which helps students to achieve high and develop more interest in chemistry.