Composite Effect of Concept Mapping and ICT on Students’ Performance in Organic Chemistry

Abstract

Generally, the performance of students in organic chemistry in Zambia is not encouraging. This can be attributed to the nature of the subject in addition to other factors. This study explored the composite effect of concept mapping and ICT on students’ performance in selected topics in organic chemistry. One hundred and thirty-four grade 12 students were involved. Data was collected using an organic chemistry performance test. A pre-test, the post-test quasi-experimental design was adopted. The study comprised of three groups randomly assigned to experimental group one, experimental group two and a control group. Experimental group one was taught using concept mapping, experimental group two was taught using a combination of concept mapping and ICT and the control group was taught using conventional methods (discussion). ANOVA results for the three groups were F (2,131) = 2.237 and p = 0.111. This indicates that there was no significant difference amongst the three groups at the beginning of the study. After treatment the results revealed that experimental group two outperformed the other two groups with a p valuep-value 0 at F (2,131) = 2.237 at ? = 0.05. Post hoc analysis using Fisher’s Least Significant Difference (LSD) test showed that the mean scores were statistically significant amongst the three groups. A very large effect was seen between experimental group one and control and between experimental group two and control. A sizable effect was seen between experimental group one and two. The conclusion is that using concept mapping with ICT has a positive effect on the performance of students in organic chemistry. The results corroborate the findings of studies that the use of concept mapping and ICT teaching strategy improves the performance of students. Consequently, this study seems to offer a positive solution towards the enhancement of students’ performance in organic chemistry in secondary schools.