Efects of Gowin’s Vee Teaching Strategy on Secondary School Students’ Conceptual Understanding And Motivation in The Topic of Hooke’s Law in Physics in Koibatek Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

Studying Physics expands frontiers of knowledge about nature, equips learners with technological skills and enhances understanding of other disciplines. Despite the importance of Physics, students’ performance in the subject in secondary school has been unsatisfactory over the years. The unsatisfactory performance suggests that students’ understanding of concepts and motivation to learn Physics was low. Teaching strategies have been cited among factors which affect students understanding and motivation to learn. This study investigated the effects of Gowin’s Vee teaching strategy on secondary school students’ conceptual understanding and motivation to learn Hooke’s law topic in Physics in Koibatek sub-county, Kenya. The study adopted the quasi-experimental Solomon four research design. The target population was all Physics students in public secondary schools in Koibatek Sub-County. The accessible population was 2041 form two Physics students in 24 co-educational secondary schools in the Sub-County. Purposive sampling was used to select 138 students from four coeducational secondary schools which were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Two instruments; Physics Conceptual Understanding Achievement Test (PCUAT) to test and Motivation to learn Physics questionnaire (PSMQ) were used to collect data. Experts from the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Management, Egerton University and experienced secondary school Physics teachers in the four selected secondary schools examined the content and face validity of the two instruments. Reliability of the test was estimated using the Kuder Richardson (KR 21) formula while that of the questionnaire was established using the Cronbach Alpha method. The reliability coefficients of PCUAT and PSMQ were 0.94 and 0.88 respectively. Data was analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Qualitative data was described and summarized using frequencies and percentages while hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of confidence using t-test and one-way ANOVA. The results showed that the differences between experimental and control group students on conceptual understanding and motivation to learn the Hooke’s law topic were statistically significant. This means that Gowin’s Vee teaching strategy improved students’ conceptual understanding and motivation. It is expected that these findings could be used by teachers to enhance students understanding and motivation to learn Physics, and performance in the subject.