ABSTRACT
This study has its titled as "Effects of Inquiry Method on the Academic Performance of Junior Secondary School Students in Islamic Studies content of the curriculum". The specific objective for the study were:- To compare the performance of students taught Islamic studies curriculum using inquiry method and those taught using traditional method of teaching. Find how the use of inquiry method of teaching enhances on the academic performance of male and female students in Islamic Studies. Determine the difference in the performance of students in pre-test and post-test for experimental groups and determine the difference on the academic performance of students in pre-test ands post-test for the control groups. Four (4) research questions and four Null-hypotheses were formulated to serve as guide for this study. Quasi-experimental design involving the pre-test and post-test was employed for the purpose of this study. A sampled of 300 students, male (160) One hundred and sixty and female (140) One-Hundred and forty, were proportionally selected out of 7,573 population and were placed into experimental and control groups i.e rural and urban. The study made use of a standardized Islamic studies performance Test (IPT) objective test items as the instrument for data collection. The scores obtained were analysed using the t-test statistical method. The result obtained in this study showed that out of the Four (4) Null-Hypotheses formulated and test at 0.05 level of significance two (2) were rejected while two (2) were retained. The rejection was attributed to the exposure of inquiry method to experimental groups which indicated that t-value is greater than t-critical in Ho1 and Ho3 while in the Ho2 and Ho4 its retention indicated a similar result in the t-value and in t-critical. The findings revealed that inquiry method have significant roles on the academic performance of Junior Secondary School (JSS) Students. In view of the above findings, it is concluded that effective use of Inquiry method in teaching should be employed as it will enhance the academic performance of not only JSS Students but the senior Secondary School (SSS) level of Education