TRADITIONAL GAMES AND PLAY ACTIVITIES TEACHING STRATEGIES AND TRADITIONAL GAMES AND PLAY ACTIVITIES TEACHING STRATEGIES AND CHEMISTRY STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN UYO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

This study was carried out to examine the effect of traditional games and play activities teaching strategies and chemistry student academic performance in Uyo Local Government Area. In order to achieve this purpose, three research questions were raised and the corresponding three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest control group research design. The population for this study consist of all public Secondary School students (3,162), who take chemistry as a subject in Uyo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. The sample of this study consisted of 100 senior secondary two (S.S.2) students that were selected from the population of the study using stratified random sampling technique. The researchers’ developed instrument titled “Chemistry Performance Test on Exothermic and Endothermic Reactions (CPTEER)” was used for data collection. The instrument was face and content validated and a reliability coefficient of .85 was obtained for the instrument using Kuder-Richardson formula (KR-21). Mean, standard deviation and t-test was used to answer the research questions and also to test the hypotheses formulated at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that there is a significant statistical mean difference in the use of traditional games and play activities teaching strategy on students’ academic performance in chemistry. The findings also revealed that there is no significant sex mean difference in the use of traditional games teaching strategy on chemistry students’ academic performance. The findings further revealed that there is no significant sex mean difference in the use of play activities teaching strategy on chemistry students’ academic performance. Students taught chemistry using traditional games teaching strategy achieved higher scores than those taught using play activities teaching strategy. Gender did not significantly impact achievement in the traditional games and play activities teaching strategies setting. These findings suggest that traditional games teaching strategy can be a powerful tool for enhancing student performance in chemistry. The instructional strategy appears to be effective for both male and female students and holds promise for bridging the educational gap between both genders. It was recommended among others that, Teachers should use traditional games and play activities in their teaching practices to promote student learning and performance in chemistry.