WAYS TO LEARNING SCIENCE ARE UNDERGOING MUTATION: WOULD THE CULTURO-TECHNO-CONTEXTUAL APPROACH BE AN EFFECTIVE VARIANT FOR LEARNING CHEMISTRY?

As the quest for better ways to present science to the new generation of students continues to occupy the thoughts of science educators across the globe, so will new approaches such as the Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach (CTCA) continue to emerge in response to thisquest. This study explores the potency of CTCA in breaking the barriers to meaningful learning of electrochemistry. The explanatory sequential design was employed. A total of 141 secondary school (II) students from two purposively selected schools in Lagos State education district V participated in the study. The electrochemistry achievement test which had a reliability coefficient of 0.78 was the instrument used to collect the quantitative data. Treatment lasted five weeks after the conduct of the pretest, the experimental group was taught using CTCA and the control group was taught using the traditional lecture method. Four weeks after the posttest, the retention test was conducted. One-way ANCOVA wasused to analyse the data. The experimental group outperformed the control group, but CTCA had no differential impact on students in the experimental group based on gender. Within the limitations of the study, we concluded that CTCA is capable of promoting meaningful learning in chemistry. Implications of the study were highlighted.