Abstract:
Appropriate teaching approaches have the effect to the performance of students. However, the performance depends on good understanding of concepts. Teaching abstract concepts require hands on works and previous researches present shortage and absence of physical laboratories resources. Interactive simulations have been used in place of physical laboratories and this study showed their effect to students’ performance. Assessing the current teaching methods and compare the effectiveness of interactive simulations with the current methods used for teaching interference of light waves on students’ performance in secondary schools of Musanze district, were objectives of this study. To achieve those objectives, the study guided by research questions: What teaching methods are currently used by teachers in Musanze District to explain interference of light waves? What is the effect of using interactive simulations versus current teaching methods on students’ performance in learning interference of light waves in secondary schools? Qualitative and quantitative data collected through quasi experimental design. To know the current situations of teaching interference, all teachers of Physics in senior five filled a mailed questionnaire. A sample of 122 students participated in this study from the total of 445 students in Musanze district who study Physics in senior five during academic year 2024-2025. Those students have been divided into two groups, experimental and control group, each group with 61 students. To know the baseline, the pre-test has been done for both groups and after studying, the post-test for both groups evaluated the effect of intervention. Additionally, interviews were conducted to emphasis the effect of simulations. Findings presented that 60% of teachers use lecturing. Pre-test’s results presented the same performance in both groups with p-value of 0.56 while post-test’s results with p-value of 0.001 and t-value of 3.4 show the difference in both groups and characterized by Cohen’s d value of 0.67 which presents moderate effect of intervention. All findings from instruments used in this study, appreciated the using of interactive simulations. Briefly, interactive simulations help learners to be more active in the lesson which imply the improvement to their performance. It is from that reason; the researcher advises teachers to use them as much as possible when teaching abstract concepts.
