Experiment-based learning of chemistry

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of conducting experiments on learning chemistry by 11th grade high school students in the field of experimental sciences. This quasi-experimental research was conducted with two control and experimental groups using one pre-test and one post-test. The population of the study consisted of 170 female high school students in Bakharz city during the academic year of 1402-1401, out of which 30 students were selected through convenience sampling. The measuring instrument was the researcher-made educational achievement test. The face validity and content validity of the academic achievement test was checked and confirmed by several experienced chemistry professors and teachers. The reliability of the academic achievement test was obtained using SPSS software with Cronbach's alpha value of 0.75, which indicates the appropriate reliability level. After homogenizing the students, they were randomly divided into two control and experimental groups based on their previous chemistry grades. The experimental group was trained for 8 weeks (8 sessions of 90 minutes) using chemistry experimentation method, and the control group was taught with the conventional teaching method. After this period, both groups were tested. T-test was used to analyze the data, the results of which showed that at probability level of 95%, there was a significant difference between achievement scores of the experimental and control group, and the learning rate was higher for experiment-based method of teaching.