Web-based discussions in teaching and learning: Secondary school teachers’ and students’ perception and potentiality to enhance students’ performance in organic chemistry

The current work explores the secondary school teachers’ and students’ perception on web-based discussions in teaching and learning and its potentiality to enhance students’ performance in organic chemistry. A mixed approaches typically interviews and achievement tests were applied for collecting qualitative and quantitative data respectively for triangulation purpose. A total of 138 senior five students and 4 teachers were purposively selected from the two secondary schools at Kicukiro District in Kigali city, Rwanda. Discourse and interpretive approaches were used to analyze qualitative data, while t-test was used for analyzing quantitative data obtained from pre- and post-test scores. The results from this study revealed that applying web-based discussions is the teaching method that potentially and effectively enhances students’ performance in organic chemistry with 0.10 learning gains and an effect size of 0.43 (df = 137 and p < .05). In addition, students and teachers have been expressed positive perceptions to the application of web-based discussions in teaching and learning. Therefore, teachers and students are recommended to access a universal chemistry network and conduct web-based discussions for increasing students performance in organic chemistry.