Computer simulations and animations in the teaching and learning of chemical kinetics, equilibrium, and energetics: Assessing teachers’ pedagogical skills in Tanzania secondary schools

This paper presents changes on teachers’ pedagogical skills in using computer simulations and animations to support the teaching and learning of chemistry concepts. It draws on the data that were collected using a mixed-method research approach coupled with pre and post-assessment of 20 level three chemistry teachers. The data from classroom observation were quantitatively analyzed using means, standard deviations, and a sample paired t-test. Thematic analysis was used for the qualitative data. The results showed that teachers’ pedagogical skills in using computer simulations and animations in teaching and learning chemical kinetics, equilibrium, and energetics were low in pre-instruction, with an overall mean of 1.3±0.1. In post-instruction, the findings indicate that teachers have improved pedagogical skills, with an overall mean of 3.9±0.06 and p-value of 0.000. Therefore, teachers need improved pedagogical strategies to use computer simulations and animations as viable instructional resources for teaching and learning of chemistry concepts. © 2022 by the authors; licensee Modestum. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).