This study investigated the extent to which teachers' questioning techniques and the way teachers handled students' responses facilitated students' learning and promoted their thinking skills. The study focused on three secondary schools in Dar es Salaam. The data collection process involved classroom observations during chemistry lessons and interviews of 10 chemistry teachers. The findings showed that 80% of the observed teachers had a moderate ability in using questioning techniques to measure students' understanding. The interesting observation in all schools was that teachers interacted frequently with active students and bothered less to involve the least active ones. Moreover, above 80% of all teachers had problems of promoting students' thinking by maintaining a balance between the openended and close-ended questions or between convergent and divergent questions. Also, the teachers indicated severe weaknesses in guiding classroom discussions through effective questioning as their abilities in probing were low. Thus, in-service program for these teachers may improve their classroom questioning behaviour.

This article is about the Predictive Validity of the University Communication Skills (CS) examination on the Students' Overall Academic Performance. It is based on the study which was conducted at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). The objectives of the study were: firstly, to determine the extent to which the CS examination predicts the overall performance expressed in terms of the University GPAs; secondly, to identify whether the predictive validity varies by sex, type of school, and type of degree programme; and thirdly, to examine whether the CS examination is a better predictor for the university GPAs than students' entry qualifications. The respondents were 358 finalists from six programmes selected randomly out of the 20 degree programmes at SUA. The findings indicated that the University CS examination positively predicted the overall students' performance expressed in terms of GPAs (r=0.416, p< 0.01). Furthermore, the predictive validity of the CS examination scores on the University GPAs varied by sex and was higher for males (r=0.483, p<0.01) than females (r=0.272, p<0.01). Moreover, the CS examination scores predicted the University GPAs better than the students' university entry points. However, the type of school attended at both CSEE and ACSEE levels and type of degree programme enrolled at SUA had insignificant influence on the predictive validity of the CS examination.

This study aimed at exploring the instructional activities that could support students’ learning of science process skills by using chemistry-based computer simulations and animations. A total of 160 students were randomly selected and 20 teachers were purposively selected to participate in the study. Data were gathered in both qualitative and quantitative formats. This was accomplished through the use of a classroom observation checklist as well as a lesson reflection sheet. The qualitative data were analyzed thematically, while the quantitative data were analyzed using percentages. The key findings from the study indicated that chemistry-based computer simulations and animations through instructional activities, particularly formulating hypotheses, planning experiments, identifying variables, developing operational definitions and interpretations, and drawing conclusions, support students in learning science process skills. It was found that during the teaching and learning process, more than 70% of students were able to perform well in the aforementioned types of instructional activities, while 60% performed well in planning experiments. On the other hand, as compared to other instructional activities, planning experiments was least observed among students and teachers. Students can be engaged in knowledge construction while learning science process skills through the use of chemistry-based computer simulations and animations instructional activities. Therefore, the current study strongly recommends the use of chemistry-based computer simulations and animations by teachers to facilitate students’ learning of chemistry concepts in Tanzanian secondary schools.