A Comparison of the Effects of School Locations on Student’s Academic Achievement in Chemistry in Cross River State, Nigeria.

This study sets out to assess how school location (urban and rural) influence students’ academic achievement in Chemistry in Cross River State, Nigeria. The research design adopted for the study is the quasi experimental non-randomized factorial design, using a pretest-posttest control group for this study. The population consisted of all senior secondary one (SS1) chemistry students in the eighty-five (85) public secondary schools in Calabar Education Zone, while the sample for the study comprised of 220 senior secondary one (SS1) chemistry students drawn from six secondary schools through simple random sampling technique (118 from urban and102 from rural location). Chemistry achievement test (CAT) with 50 items multiple choice questions was the instrument for data collection, administered to the 220 students across their different schools. The reliability of the instrument was obtained as 0.88 using Kuder Richardson formula (KR-20). Independent t-test analysis was used for data analysis, the result showed that the calculated t-cal value was 8.20, while the critical table value was 1.960, therefore there is a significant difference in the mean scores achievement in Chemistry between rural and urban secondary schools 1 students. The difference is in favor of urban schools. It was concluded that students in the urban areas performed academically better than their rural counterparts. It was then recommended among others that schools in the rural areas should be provided with the necessary learning facilities such as well-equipped laboratories with qualified and committed teachers for effective teaching and learning of chemistry in the area.

Keywords: School location, students academic achievements, chemistry, teaching strategies, learning facilities and chemistry achievement test