Teacher Variables as Predictors of Chemistry Teachers’ Awareness of Ethnoscience Practices

Abstract

Innovative researchers and discoveries by science educators and academics on the effectiveness of ethnic science-based instructional models and strategies remain futile in the field as a result of chemistry teachers' ongoing ignorance and scorn for ethnic scientific practices. This omission, which could be due to inadequate understanding, has stymied efforts to develop a contextualized chemistry education system that would allow for more meaningful learning and successful instruction. Hence, this study was to determine ethnoscience awareness among secondary school chemistry teachers, and to predict the value of teacher factors and school district. The study adopted correlational survey research design. Data were collected from a sample of 40 chemistry teachers drawn from two educational districts (I & V) of Lagos state. The instrument CTQAEP was validated and reliability was 0.85. Four research questions were answered at 0.05 and 0.01 level of significance using Analysis of Variance ANOVA. The study revealed that chemistry teachers’ awareness of ethnoscience was below expectation with a mean average score of (3.03). The independent variables had significant composite contribution on awareness of ethnoscience (F (4,39) = 1.734 p<0.05)). The study recommended based on the findings that chemistry teachers be equipped with indigenous knowledge and also include ethnoscience in the training and re-training programs. In addition, the government and educational research institutes should boost research on ethnoscience practices profiling for inclusion in science classrooms.