Interplay of Group and Individualized Laboratory Activities in Practical Physics

Advocacy has been made for varied teaching strategies towards enhancing the cognitive attainment of students particularly at high schools. Much has not been done on the engagement of learners in laboratory activities for practical physics. We investigated the effect of laboratory activities on students’ performance in practical physics in selected secondary schools focusing on group and individual activities. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. It is a quasi-experimental design using pre-test and post-test with experimental groups. The instrument used was a researchers developed performance test tagged “Practical Physics Performance Test (PPPT). A reliability coefficient of r=0.77 was obtained using Kuder-Richardson KR-21 method. The experiment was conducted for a period of six weeks after which the posttest was administered to the three groups. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation. The null hypothesis was tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The result revealed that students taught practical physics using group laboratory activity performed significantly more than students that were taught practical physics using individualized and lecturing activities. Teachers are therefore required re-strategies on how best to involve students into group laboratory activities during practical physics instructions to facilitate high level cognition. Sub-group approach that are monitored by the teacher with hybrid of fast and slow learners can be adopted.