AN EVALUATION OF TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY AT PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

This mixed study evaluated the professional teaching of chemistry through learners’ perspective against the criteria of B.Ed at public secondary schools in Pakistan regarding eight aspects: general professional teaching skills, lesson planning, teaching methods, audio-visual aids, students’ classroom activities and formative assessment, and course coverage of theory and practical. I collected quantitative data through self-developed questionnaire of 70 items using stratified sampling of 350 students from boys-only, girls only, boys in co-education, and girls in co-education across rural and urban schools; however, qualitative data involved 20 students’ semi-structured interviews. A panel of experts and pilot testing refined the tools. The overall Coronbach’s alpha stood at 0.9 and 0.8 for professional teaching and test-items respectively. Descriptive statistics, multiple regression, correlation, independent samples t-test, and ANOVA analyses revealed the failure of existing professional teaching of chemistry. The qualitative thematic analyses and triangulation confirmed it: Dictation of questions and answers as dominant teaching method, and constantly locked science laboratories and equipments emerged as the major themes. Laboratory experimentation, audio-visual aids, chemistry theory, and teaching methods strongly predicted students’ test-scores with 41.7% surety. However, demographic variables: Students’ favorite subject, home study, parents’ income, and students’ gender weakly predicted learners’ test-scores. Independent samples t-test and ANOVA analyses revealed that EVALUATION OF TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY 2 students devoting more time to home-study and tuition, especially in natural sciences, and students’ from separate schools for gender, and parents with higher earning and rank got significantly different test-scores; however, gender and parents’ education had no significant differences. I presented feasible and realistic recommendations to the concerned stakeholders. Key words: evaluation, chemistry, professional training, teaching, secondary schools