Anim-Eduful, Benjamin

INTERACTION EFFECT OF GENDER, ACROSS SCHOOL-TYPE ON UPPER-SECONDARY STUDENTS' DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL REASONING ON ORGANIC QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

By Adu-Gyamfi, Kenneth

Chemical tests (qualitative analysis) on functional groups may improve students' understanding of basic concepts about the structure of organic compounds and their reactivity. However, upper-secondary school students have difficulties in learning organic qualitative analysis. This research has studied whether the gender of students and school-type affect development of experimental reasoning on organic qualitative analysis. From three school-types, 50.2% males and 49.8% females were sampled through a multistage sampling procedure and participated in a cross-sectional survey. Data from 263 students were collected with the aid of diagnostic test on knowledge of organic qualitative analysis. A two-way between-groups ANOVA and independentsamples t-test were used to analyse the data. It was found no interaction effect of gender and school-type on students' development of experimental reasoning on organic qualitative analysis.