HANDS-ON AND VIRTUAL LABORATORY APPROACHES ON STUDENTS' ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN CHEMISTRY

The study was carried out to examine the effect of hands-on and virtual laboratory approaches on students' academic performance in Chemistry in Mkpat Enin Local Government Area. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The design for the study was a quasi-experimental design. The population of this study comprised all the 2093 Senior Secondary two (SSII) Chemistry students in the sixteen (16) public secondary schools in the study area. A sample size of 88 students was used for the study in their intact classes. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the two schools used in the study. A researcher-developed instrument tagged “Chemistry Performance Test on Quantitative Analysis (CPTQA)” was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three lecturers, two Chemistry lecturers and an expert in Measurement and Evaluation in the Department of Science Education, Akwa Ibom State University. A reliability coefficient of 0.86 was obtained for the instrument using Kuder Richardson formula - 20. Mean and standard deviation were used for answering the research questions while independent t-test was used for testing the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The findings of the study showed that there is no significant difference in the mean performance scores of Chemistry students taught the concept of quantitative analysis using hands-on and virtual laboratory approaches. The result also showed that there is no significant difference in the mean performance score of male and female Chemistry students taught the concept of quantitative analysis using hands-on and virtual laboratory approaches. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that both hands-on and virtual laboratory approaches enhance students' academic performance in Chemistry in Mkpat Enin Local Government Area. It was recommended among others that; teachers should integrate both hands-on and virtual laboratories for teaching chemistry concepts since both methods yield similar performance outcomes.