Abstract

The significance of computer animations in a senior high chemistry classroom is investigated in this chemistry education research study. This study investigated the effect of computer animations on the academic achievements of senior high school students in terms of rate of reactions. The study was conducted in two public Senior High Schools in Ablekuma West Municipal in Greater Accra Region of Ghana. This study was anchored on the positivist paradigm and adopted the quantitative approach as well as a quasi-experimental design to achieve its objectives. The study used purposive sampling to select 85 students for the study. Two intact classes were engaged in the study with 45 students in the experimental group and 40 students in the control group. The instrument used for the collection of data was the ‘Rate of Reaction Achievement Test’ (RoRAT), in the form of a pre-test and a post-test. The pre-test was used to check if the two groups were at the same level of achievement in rate of reactions or not before the treatment. A post-test was administered after the treatment to find out whether the treatment activities assisted to enhance students’ academic achievement in the rate of reactions or not. The results showed that there was no significant difference between the means of the pre-test scores of the experimental group and the control group before the treatment, which indicated that the two groups were the same in terms of their understanding and achievements in the rate of reaction concepts. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the means of the post-test scores of the experimental group and the control group after the treatment. The effect size in the post-test scores between the two groups was large. The study concluded that computer animations assisted senior high school students to better understand rate of reactions resulting in enhanced academic achievement.