How can inquiry-based teaching approach be used by physics teachers in a rural secondary school to improve students’ participation in learning physics? A case study of a rural public secondary school in Kanungu district in Uganda.

Several researchers have published that there is a decline in the number of students interested in studying science today. They attribute this to the poor methods of teaching used by science teachers in schools today. They assert that there is no correlation between what is taught in science lessons and its relevance in real world. For that reason students fail to know the implications of studying science and its use in everyday life. One prospective way of improving students’ interest and motivation to learn science will be the teaching of science lessons using inquiry activities that will improve students’ participation and understanding. The purpose of this study was to explore how physics teachers in rural secondary schools can use inquiry-based teaching approach to improve students’ participation in learning physics. The study employed an action research design to teach physics lessons that used inquiry tasks sought to improve students’ participation in learning physics. Four inquiry-based lessons were administered to a class of twenty four students of form two in a rural secondary school. I collaborated with one physics teacher to developed and teach the lessons. The study revealed that physics teachers in rural secondary schools practice non- inquiry-based teaching approaches like lecture, and questions and answers in their classrooms. The study employed inquiry-based teaching approach, and asserted that inquiry-based teaching approach, increased students’ participation in learning physics. The study also revealed that the major hindrance to physics teachers when trying to practice inquiry-based teaching was teachers themselves hold naive conceptions on some physics topics and this hinder their performance when trying to practice inquiry-based teaching. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Sports plan for in service training of physics teachers to enhance their skills of practicing inquiry-based teaching of physics