Assessment of hands-on activities on students' achievement and attitudes towards chemical bonding

The study assessed the efficacy of hands-on activities on students’ academic achievement and attitude in learning ionic and covalent bonds in a senior high and a technical school in Ghana. The sample size for the study was 30 and comprised of 22 males and 8 females who were purposively sampled for the study. The main instruments used to collect data were tests, interviews and questionnaire. The various hands-on activities employed included writing Lewis dot structures, drawing diagrams for ionic bonds and covalent bonds, tug of war, modelling with ball and sticks as well as calculation of electro negativity differences. Statistical analyses showed that students scored significantly higher scores (t = -6.32; p < 0.05) in the post-test than in the pre-test. Also, a gain of 3.83 was obtained for the post test over the mean score of the pre–test. This confirmed that the treatment strategy significantly improved students’ performance in learning chemical bonding through the interactive hands-on activities. The study also revealed that hands-on learning increased students’ interest to read chemistry, facilitated understanding and recall of chemical concepts, made lesson more exciting and led to positive motivational outcomes. Furthermore, the activities engaged students, made them critical thinkers, and enhanced their learning skills.