THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHING PHYSICS THROUGH INQUIRY AT SECONDARY SCHOOL LEVEL IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

This study was designed to find the comparative effects of teaching Physics through inquiry method, and traditional lecture method, and analyze effects of these methods on Grade 9 students’ attitude towards Physics. The objectives of the study were (a) to find the effectiveness of teaching Physics to Grade 9 through inquiry teaching method (ITM) on academic achievement of male and female students, (b) to find the effectiveness of teaching of Physics to Grade 9 through traditional teaching lecture method (TTLM) on academic achievement of male and female students, (c) to find comparative effectiveness of teaching Physics to Grade 9 through inquiry teaching (ITM) and traditional teaching lecture method (TTLM) on academic achievement of male and female students,(d) to find comparative effectiveness of inquiry teaching method (ITM) and traditional teaching lecture method (TTLM) in teaching of Physics to Grade 9,(e) to find the attitude towards Physics of male and female students in the teaching of Physics through inquiry teaching method (ITM), (f) to find attitude towards Physics of male and female students in the teaching of Physics through traditional teaching lecture method (TTLM) and (g) to find the attitude towards Physics for Grade 9 of male and female students in the teaching of Physics through inquiry teaching method (ITM) and traditional teaching lecture method (TTLM).Fifty four (54) null hypotheses were tested in order to achieve the objectives. Two hundred and forty (240) science students (120 male and 120 female) of Grade 9, from four schools were constituted as sample of the study. Students of each school were divided into two equivalent groups i.e. control and experimental group on the basis of Pre-test of (academic achievement and attitude toward Physics). Experimental groups were taught through inquiry method and control groups by traditional lecture method for twenty two weeks. Post-test of academic achievements, and Pre-test of attitude toward Physics, were administered after treatment to assess the difference in performance of all groups. The data obtained were tabulated and analyzed to compute mean, standard deviation and t-value. The data collected by Pre-test of academic achievement, Post-test academic achievement, Pre-test of attitude towards Physics and Post-test of attitude towards Physics were analyzed through SPSS 16.0 software; t-test was applied to test null hypotheses at significance level(0.05). The performance of the experimental group on Post-test of academic achievement, and Post-test attitude towards Physics were significantly more effective, than Pre-test of academic achievement, Pre- test of attitude towards Physics and the control groups, this proves that inquiry teaching method is more effective, than the traditional lecture method in learning Physics. Performance of experimental group (boys) was better than the experimental group (girls) in all learning domains and attitude towards Physics. On the basis of findings, conclusions were drawn and recommendations were made accordingly.