CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PEDAGOGY: INCORPORATING LOCAL RESOURCES AND INDIGENOUS PRACTICES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN SECONDARY SCHOOL CHEMISTRY

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of culturally responsive pedagogy by incorporating local 
resources and indigenous practices, on students’ achievement in secondary school Chemistry. The 
study adopted a quasi- experimental design, specifically pretest posttest non -equivalent control 
group.  Two research questions and three null hypotheses tested at.05 level of significance guided 
the study. The population of the study comprised 435 (214 male and 221 female) SS1 students in 
all the public secondary schools in Umuahia North Local Government Area, Abia State. The 
sample size consisted of 115 (50 male and 65 female) students drawn from the target population 
using simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques since gender is a variable in 
the study. The instrument for data collection, chemistry achievement test (CAT) was face and 
content validated by three experts in Science Education Department, Michael Okpara University 
of Agriculture, Umudike. The reliability coefficient of CAT was determined to be 0.74 using 
Kuder Richardson formula 20 (KR-20). Research questions were answered using mean and 
standard deviation while the null hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance using 
ANCOVA.  The findings of the study indicated a significant difference in students’ achievement 
between those taught using local resources and indigenous practices and those taught with lecture 
method, in favour of the experimental group. Again, a non- significant difference in achievement 
was observed between male and female students exposed to local resources and indigenous 
practices, and the interaction effect of method and gender was also not significant. It was 
recommended that chemistry teachers should teach students with materials and examples from 
their immediate environment to achieve positive results.