Effect of the inquiry-based teaching approach on students’ understanding of circle theorems in plane geometry

This study investigated the effect of inquiry-based teaching approach on senior high school (SHS) students’ conceptual understanding of circle theorems. It utilized mixed method approach involving quasi-experimental design in which 79 home economics students in two intact SHSs classes were purposively sampled and assigned to control and experimental groups. The experimental group was treated with a teaching approach that integrated inquiry-based teaching into classroom discourse. Tests (pre- and post-), for assessing students’ understanding of circle theorems and a questionnaire for measuring the students’ perception of motivation to learn were given to the two groups before and after the treatment. An independent sample t-test run on the results of the circle theorems tests for the two groups revealed that students in both groups showed an increased in their understanding of circle theorems in the post-test as compared to the pre-test. However, students in the experimental groups achieved better results compared to those in the control group. Also, the experimental group’s perception of motivation in classroom learning environment during the treatment was higher than that of the control group. It was recommended among others that inquiry-based teaching approach should be integrated into classroom teaching and learnin