Impact of Teaching Isotopes in Chemistry 5070 Using the Historic Approach on Zambian Grade 11 Pupils Achievement and Motivation

Chisenga Abily, Phillip Daka, Overson Shumba

This action research explored the impact of the historic approach on pupils’ motivation and achievement. The study involved two grade eleven classes studying Chemistry 5070 at a secondary school in in Zambia. The two classes had 104 pupils and out of these 34.6% were girls while 65.3% were boys. The study adopted a counterbalanced quasi-experimental design. The experimental group was taught using the historic approach combined with the lecture discussion method while the control group was taught using the lecture discussion method only. After teaching four lessons, the class that was the experimental group became the control group and the one that was the control group became the experimental group. Achievement was assessed using results from a chemistry test while the one that related to motivation was assessed using results from a questionnaire and classroom observations. A t-test was used to compare the counterbalanced groups at 95% confidence level. Results and findings obtained both from the achievement test and a questionnaire survey revealed that the historic approach contributed positively to pupils’ achievement and motivation towards chemistry. Results of this study suggest that there were significant positive gains in pupils’ motivation and achievement in chemistry when using the historic model. These gains were higher for the historic model compared to those obtained when using the lecture discussion method only.