Using Indigenous Scientific Knowledge to Teach Chemistry Concepts

This study was designed to assess the impact of the Indigenous Scientific Knowledge Practices
involved in the production of cassava dough on the teaching of Chemistry concepts. An
ethnographic study of Indigenous Knowledge experts in cassava dough production was
conducted and relevant data collected. Consequently, an ‘Integrated Indigenous Scientific
Knowledge (ISK)-Chemistry lesson’ was designed and used on twenty-six students to evaluate
its impact on students’ learning outcomes. The Interrupted Time Series (ITS) design was
adopted and used for quantitative data collection on students. The Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data collected and results interpreted using
means and graphs. The paired samples test result for the means of all the Pretests and Posttests
gave a significant figure p-value which implied that there was a significant difference
in the average performance of students in the Pretest and Posttest. The analysis again recorded
a significant p-value when the post-test scores of females were compared to that of the
males. This showed that there was no significant difference in the true average performance
of male and female students. Hence, the designed integrated ISK-Chemistry lesson impacted
positively on all students and was not gender biased