Developing Students’ Curiosity Through Chemistry Hands-on Activities: A Case of Selected Community Secondary Schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Curiosity is the inner drive for learning or ‘hunger for learning’ which is among the twenty-first-century learning competencies. Students in their earliest stage ought to exhibit curiosity to stir-up knowledge acquisition and exploration, yet the development of curiosity in the context of education is considered to be unusual. This research assesses how chemistry students develop and express curiosity in a hands-on learning environment. A sample of 169 senior three students from three community secondary schools in Dar es Salaam was involved in this study. Besides, the study examined how hands-on activities in chemistry lessons can be incorporated as a pedagogical practice to foster students’ curiosity. The study employed a convergent mixed method design in (QUAL+quant) form following a pragmatic stance. We used lesson observations, interviews, and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to gather qualitative data while quantitative data were obtained through the Students’ Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SSRQ) and Teacher Rating Scale (TRS). It was revealed that hands-on activities can successfully be used when teachers share success criteria and learning intentions of a particular lesson. The overall results showed a significant increase in students’ curiosity due to the implementation of hands-on activities as an instructional strategy. In this perspective, we advocate for hands-on activities to be used frequently in chemistry lesson sessions and more studies should be done further on students’ curiosity in the field of education.