Effect of Differentiated Instruction on Interest of Students in Organic Chemistry in Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of differentiated instruction on interest of students in organic chemistry in Makurdi, Nigeria. Non-randomized, non-equivalent quasi-experiment design was used for the study. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided this study. The population of the study was 14,360 senior secondary II students in Benue State Zone A Senatorial District for the 2023/2024 academic session comprising 7,232 male and 7,128 female students. Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select a sample of 220 SS II students. Six intact classes constituted the sample. The instrument –Organic Chemistry Interest Scale (OCIS) was developed and validated by the researchers. The instrument was trial tested on 30 students and it yielded reliability coefficient of 0.92 through Cronbach alpha. Data were collected and analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed a statistically significant difference between the mean interest ratings of students taught using differentiated instruction and traditional conventional strategy (F = 584.310, P = 0.000 < α = 0.05). The findings also revealed that there is no significant difference between the mean interest rating of male and female students taught using differentiated instruction (F = 0.583, P = 0.447 > 20.05). Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended among others that teachers should adopt differentiated instruction in teaching organic Chemistry in senior secondary school as it has potential of improving students’ interest in organic Chemistry and bridging gender gap in students’ interest particularly in organic Chemistry.