The CRAL Model: A Theoretical Framework for Culturally-responsive, Inquiry-based Physics Instruction in Nigerian Secondary Schools

Abstract

Introduction: Physics instruction in Nigerian secondary schools often fails to connect abstract concepts to students’ lived realities, limiting genuine understanding and engagement. Objectives: This paper introduces and theorises the Concrete-Representational-Abstract-Lived-Experience (CRAL) Model, a novel pedagogical framework that anchors physics instruction in community-level cultural specificity. Methods: CRAL extends the established Concrete-Representational-Abstract progression from mathematics education with a fourth stage — Lived-Experience Localisation — in which students explain physics concepts through analogies drawn from their immediate instructional community. The framework is embedded within the 5E inquiry cycle and grounded in constructivist learning theory, conceptual change theory, culturally responsive pedagogy, and analogical reasoning. CRAL is operationalised through PhysicsMentor-NG, an AI-powered lesson generation system that structurally enforces community-level cultural specificity. Results: As a theoretical paper, no empirical data were collected; the outcomes below are analytic, not measured. The framework yields lesson designs in which cultural grounding is a structural requirement rather than a pedagogical suggestion, and PhysicsMentor-NG enforces this requirement consistently in the lesson notes it generates. Conclusions: CRAL represents a practical and deployable innovation for Nigerian secondary science education, with broader applicability across postcolonial, multilingual school systems.