The Relative Effectiveness of Guided Discovery and Demonstration Teaching Methods on Achievement of Chemistry Students of Different levels of Scientific Literacy

The study was conducted to assess the relative effectiveness of guided discovery and demonstration teaching methods on achievement of chemistry students of different levels of scientific literacy. Two research questions and two null hypotheses were formulated and tested respectively. Two instruments, namely: Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) and Scientific Literacy Test (SLT) were used for data collection. A quasi-experimental design was adopted. Results indicate that the guided discovery method was significantly superior to the demonstration teaching method in enhancing cognitive achievement in chemistry for all levels of scientific literacy students. For the guided discovery and demonstration teaching methods, the higher the scientific literacy levels, the higher the achievement of students in chemistry. It was recommended that: the government should encourage science teachers to use guided discovery method by providing needed conducive environment for teaching and learning with adequate instructional materials; in service training of science teachers on how to use guided discovery is needed since most of such innovative teaching method; and science teachers should no longer be contented with teaching for acquisition of knowledge alone but should also teach for inculcation of scientific literacy.