Effect of Guided-Inquiry-Based Instructional Strategy on Performance in Esterification Concept among Secondary Schools Students in Zaria Metropolis, Kaduna State

The study investigated effect of guided-inquiry-based instructional strategy on performance in esterification concept among secondary schools students in Zaria metropolis, Kaduna state, Nigeria. The study sample is made up of 100 male and female students randomly selected from two public and two private schools. A quasi-experimental research design was employed for the study. Random sampling method was used to select four schools and purposive sampling was used to assign two public schools as experimental group and two private schools as control group, respectively. The experimental group was taught esterification using guided inquiry based learning method while control group was taught using lecture method. The instrument used for data collection was Chemistry Achievement Test. The instrument was validated by a team of experts and reliability test for combined constructs using Cronbach’s alpha produced a value of 0.89. The academic performance of the two groups were compared using posttest mean scores to answer the research questions and independent t-test two tailed at p≤0.05 significance level was used to test the hypothesis formulated for the study. The finding shows that students taught using guided inquiry based learning performed significantly better than those taught using lecture method and there was no significant difference in the academic performance of male and female students. Type of school whether public or private does not affect students’ performance. Consequently, it was recommended that government and proprietors of private schools should sponsor and/ or organize workshops for teachers to utilize guided inquiry based learning method effectively.