Effectiveness of Inquiry-Based Chemistry Learning on Students’ Attitudes and Knowledge of Climate Change Mitigation Behaviors

Abstract

Climate change has been a global topical issue due to serious adverse effects that have been posed on the global ecosystem. This has generated a global call for "climate action" that focuses on climate change mitigation behaviors and empowerment of young citizens. The empowerment could be acquired through an effective chemistry education. This quasi-experimental study set to investigate the effectiveness of inquiry-based chemistry learning on students' attitudes and knowledge of climate change mitigation behaviors. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. A sample of 725 participants was used for the study. Instruments used were the Climate Mitigation Attitude Inventory (CMAI) and Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT). The internal consistency of CMAI was 0.92, as estimated using the Cronbach's alpha method, while the internal constancy of CAT was estimated to be 0.89 using the Kudder− Richardson formula 20 (K-R, 20) method. Results show that there were significant improvements on students' attitudes and knowledge in climate change mitigation behaviors using inquiry-based chemistry learning. Based on the results, it was recommended that stakeholders in climate change mitigations, especially governments, should adopt and invest in the use of chemistry education to educate the young citizenry on climate change mitigation behaviors. Again, teachers should adopt inquiry-based chemistry learning in teaching chemistry for climate change mitigation behaviors.