Factors Affecting Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievements in Chemistry

Abstract

Secondary school students continue to consider chemistry as difficult to learn and develop a negative attitude towards it. This leads to low achievement in the subject and reduces their interest. Studies on students' achievement in chemistry have been conducted and different instructional strategies of teaching and learning have been provided. Nonetheless, there are persisting misconceptions and factors that hinder the achievement of students, even after the implementation of suggested strategies. By applying innovative teaching approaches as remedial to teaching and learning barriers, students' achievement may be improved; and the retention of the learned material may be enhanced. In this study, we conducted a literature search to collect any related literature. Sixty-one studies were obtained; some of them were not related to our investigation; and those which did not answer the research question were excluded, we remained with 13 studies. The selection of studies was based on year of publication, and language. These studies were published in English and between 2011 and 2021. Consequently, this review highlights the influence of teaching methods on students' achievements, updating teachers on the factors affecting students' achievements in Chemistry, misconceptions in chemistry instruction, and ways for remedying those misconceptions, as well as methods for improving students’ academic achievements.

Predictors of Chemistry Learning Among First Year University Students

“…Different investigations identified many determining factors that affect the teaching and learning of Chemistry in the basic education (Al-Amoush et al, 2014;Cho & Baek, 2019;& Sibomana et al, 2021). For instance, Sibomana et al (2021) examined various factors affecting chemistry learning in secondary students through a literature review and found that school factors, content area, teachers and students' factors, teaching approaches, effect of class size, family socioeconomic status, and leadership styles were influential to students' academic achievement in Chemistry. Ejidike et al (2015) on the other hand explored major factors influencing the effective chemistry instruction.…”

Correlation between test anxiety and students’ chemistry achievement

“…In their study of the factors influencing secondary school student's academic achievement in chemistry. Sibomana et al (2021) identified eight categories of factors that affect students' chemistry performance: content area factors, leadership styles, teachers, students, and school factors, innovative teaching strategies, socioeconomic status of the family, and class size effect. According to Apuh (2020), students' attitudes, resource availability, interpersonal relationships of students and teachers, and students attendance regularity affect on chemistry academic achievement of secondary school students.…”

Rwandan secondary school students’ attitudes in learning chemistry: explored with task-based instruction

“…The same study investigated factors affecting secondary school student's academic achievements in chemistry. Among the reported factors includes students' attitudes toward chemistry ( Sibomana et al., 2021 ). Therefore, educators should strive to use teaching methods that motivate students to learn, making an enjoyable and engaging learning environment.…”

“…The need for motivation in learning biology was explored by Mukagihana et al (2021) and found that there was no statistically significant difference in the motivation of learning the biology of pre-service teachers before and after learning with traditional instruction at a public university while this difference was found statistically significant via animation instruction. The findings from the study of Sibomana et al (2021) showed that the lack of insufficient instructional materials, science laboratories, and the predominant use of teacher-centered methods decrease students' interest in learning and hence perform poorly. The same study investigated factors affecting secondary school student's academic achievements in chemistry.…”