Teacher Variables and School Location as Predictors of Chemistry Teachers’ Awareness of Ethno Science Practices

Abstract

Innovative researches and findings of science educators and scholars on the effectiveness of ethno science based instructional model and approach remains unproductive in the field of chemistry education because of the continuous ignorance and neglect of ethno scientific practices by chemistry instructors. This neglect which could possibly be as a result of a lack or, inadequate awareness has stalled moves for contextualized system of chemistry education for more meaningful learning and effective teaching. In view of this, this study sought to ascertain secondary school chemistry teachers’ level of awareness of ethno science practices and the predictive value of teacher variables and school location. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Data were collected from a sample of 150 chemistry teachers drawn from rural and urban secondary schools in Akinyele, Ido and Lagelu Local Government Area, Oyo state. The instruments used were validated and each reliability tested; Chemistry Teachers’ Questionnaire on Awareness of Ethno Science Practices (r=0.75) and Chemistry Teachers’ Questionnaire on Value for Culture (r=0.95). Four research questions tested at 0.05 and 0.01 level of significance using Analysis of Variance ANOVA; which guided this study were answered using descriptive statistics of (mean and standard deviation), Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression. The study revealed that chemistry teachers’ awareness of ethno science was below expectation (x̅=60.34). The independent variables had significant composite contribution on awareness of ethno science (23.9%). Gender and School location both had no significant relative contribution on awareness while, Value for culture (B=0.128;t=3.166;p<0.05) and Experience (B=5.490;t=3.551;p<0.05) both had significant relative contribution on awareness. Gender had no significant relationship with awareness while, Value for culture (r=0.811;p<0.01), Experience (r=0.242;p<0.01) and School location (r=0.360;p<0.01) had significant relationship with awareness. Following these findings, it was recommended that there is need to equip chemistry teachers with indigenous knowledge of the people in the area where they teach through training and re-training. The need for government and educational research institute to encourage research on profiling of ethno science practices for integration in science classroom was also suggested. Also suggested, is the need for chemistry teachers to be given the necessary support and opportunity to formally link culture with western science in classroom instruction.