Although there is an invaluable growth of science and technology across the world, many young people appear to lose interest in Mathematics and science-related subjects due to poor academic achievement caused by different factors. The factors affecting students' achievement in science subjects among sub-Saharan Africa countries,including Rwanda, have been an issue for stakeholders on investigating how to improve the teaching and learning of science in basic education. In this study, a purposive cluster sampling of 261 participants, including 210 students, 23 teachers, seven head teachers, seven Sector Education Inspectors (SEIs), and 14 parents were used. Data were collected through a questionnaire addressed to learners; analyzed using SPSS via descriptive statistics. An interview was conducted with students' representatives, teachers, head teachers,Sector Education Inspectors, and focus group discussion with 14 parents which was analyzed using content analysis. The analysis indicated that key factors of low performance in science subjects include the level of teachers' education; family's economic background; availability of teaching and learning materials; distance covered by learners from home to school; learner's prior knowledge; and level of parents'education and absenteeism of learners. Thus, the above seem to affect the academic achievement of students in the advanced level of Twelve-Year Basic Education in Rwanda. Views about how to improve learning achievements in science such as equipping the laboratories, constructing more 12YBE schools in various areas to curb the problem of long distances covered by learners to and from school, training teachers on innovative teaching methods were suggested. The results informed that in-service teachers' training and parental involvement should be encouraged to track and sustain learners’ learning.

Secondary school students continue to consider chemistry as difficult to learn and develop a negative attitude towards it. This leads to low achievement in the subject and reduces their interest. Studies on students' achievement in chemistry have been conducted and different instructional strategies of teaching and learning have been provided. Nonetheless, there are persisting misconceptions and factors that hinder the achievement of students, even after the implementation of suggested strategies. By applying innovative teaching approaches as remedial to teaching and learning barriers, students' achievement may be improved; and the retention of the learned material may be enhanced. In this study, we conducted a literature search to collect any related literature. Sixty-one studies were obtained; some of them were not related to our investigation; and those which did not answer the research question were excluded, we remained with 13 studies. The selection of studies was based on year of publication, and language. These studies were published in English and between 2011 and 2021. Consequently, this review highlights the influence of teaching methods on students' achievements, updating teachers on the factors affecting students' achievements in Chemistry, misconceptions in chemistry instruction, and ways for remedying those misconceptions, as well as methods for improving students’ academic achievements.

Chemistry subject continues to be considered as difficult to teach and learn. This leads to students’ low academic achievement, retention, and negative attitude towards the subject. Organic chemistry as one of the concepts on which technological advancement is constructed sometimes appears to be enormously complex to students. There are some persisting misconceptions about it although different innovative instructional strategies have been applied and this area is of main concern as the learning of students can be extremely hindered in case their misconceptions are not minimized and/or corrected. The review then is to equip educators with knowledge about organic chemistry concept and source of students ‘misconceptions; the misconceptions of students about organic chemistry; the ways of diagnosing students’ misconceptions and remedies of those misconceptions; some learning theories for the effective organic chemistry instruction and classroom implications. The paper is also useful to know more about the minimization of students’ misconceptions and leading them to the great academic achievement and interest towards the subject by employing cooperative learning models; thus, many other different innovative teaching strategies are recommended to apply in organic chemistry instruction

<p style="text-align: justify;">The cooperative learning (CL) is an advanced instructional approach that uses different motivational procedures to make instruction significant and learners more responsible. This study aimed to investigate the effects of cooperative learning on students' achievement in chemistry among the advanced level in 12-year basic education schools; it engaged a quasi-experimental design with one treatment group and a comparison group (control); the first applied cooperative learning in teaching organic chemistry while in the control group, organic chemistry was taught by the conventional teaching methods (CTM). A sample of 257 students participated in the study. The data collected used an organic Chemistry Achievement Test, and its data were analyzed using SPSS version 23.0 and MS Excel 2016. The ANCOVA results showed that learners taught using cooperative learning achieved better than their counterparts in the control group (F=78.07, df=1, 256, p<.001) with the learning gains of 16.0% in traditional methods and 53.6% of cooperative learning approach, respectively. However, there was no statistically significant difference in gender of students. It is recommended that chemistry teachers be trained on cooperative learning and encouraged to apply it in their teaching methods to enhance students' academic achievement.</p>

Chemistry subject continues to be considered as difficult to teach and learn. This leads to students’ low academic achievement, retention, and negative attitude towards the subject. Organic chemistry as one of the concepts on which technological advancement is constructed sometimes appears to be enormously complex to students. There are some persisting misconceptions about it although different innovative instructional strategies have been applied and this area is of main concern as the learning of students can be extremely hindered in case their misconceptions are not minimized and/or corrected. The review then is to equip educators with knowledge about organic chemistry concept and source of students ‘misconceptions; the misconceptions of students about organic chemistry; the ways of diagnosing students’ misconceptions and remedies of those misconceptions; some learning theories for the effective organic chemistry instruction and classroom implications. The paper is also useful to know more about the minimization of students’ misconceptions and leading them to the great academic achievement and interest towards the subject by employing cooperative learning models; thus, many other different innovative teaching strategies are recommended to apply in organic chemistry instruction

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