PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ AWARENESS OF INNOVATIVE TOOLS IN CHEMISTRY TEACHING

Abstract

The best way to pave way for usage of effective tools for
teaching of chemistry called for awareness of the tools by the
prospective users which are the pre-service teachers. This study
was carried out to investigate pre-service chemistry teachers’
awareness of innovative tools in teaching chemistry. One
hundred and eighty-two pre-service chemistry teachers from
both university and colleges of education were involved in the
study. The sample size which was randomly selected consisted of
82 male and 100 female. A researcher designed questionnaire
known as Pre-service Teachers Awareness of Innovative Tools
in Chemistry Questionnaire tagged PTAITCQ was the
instrument used to collect data for the study. Two experts in the
field of Chemistry Education carried out the face and content
validity of the instrument while the reliability of the instrument
was determined using Cronbach alpha in which reliability
coefficient of 0.75 was arrived at. The data analysis was carried
out with mean and standard deviation while the four null
hypotheses formulated were tested using t-test at 0.05 level of
significance. Findings revealed that pre-service chemistry
teachers were aware of four out of the 10 innovative tools. The
respondents have positive views about the roles of innovative
tools. It was also reported that gender influenced the
respondents’ awareness of innovative tools for teaching
chemistry while pre-service institution of learning did not. It is
therefore recommended that there is the need for creation of
awareness of all the necessary innovative tools used in teaching
of chemistry.