Journal of Global Research in Education and Social Science

Both incentive and inquiry-based learning are among trending approaches in the field of education. The pretest-posttest non-randomized style known as quasi-experimental research design was used. The present study sought to rationalize the implementation of incentive-based learning in combination with inquiry-based learning approaches and assessed their combinatorial effect on learners’ overall academic performance. The study population comprises 52 senior four learners from the College of Saint Jean Nyarusange in Muhanga district. Learners were distributed into two groups namely control (Z) and experimental (W) groups. The two groups were taught the same topic extracted from the chemistry curriculum by using different teaching and motivational approaches and a subsequent paper-based test was administered for overall performance evaluation. The stand and deliver method was applied to learners in the control group in contrast to the experimental group taught by using IBA in combination with IBLA. In addition, the interactive behavior acquisition by students in the experimental group was tracked. Descriptive statistics performed indicated that learners subjected to IBA combined with IBLA performed better as shown by the mean difference between means of the pretest and posttest of 58.75000 and 74.10985 respectively as well as standard deviations of 6.95018 and 9.29708 respectively. Contrary, there was no significant difference in means and standard deviations for the pretest and posttest in the control group. Overall, learners in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group, therefore, researchers recommend the use of IBA and IBLA as effective combinatorial strategies to improve learners’ academic performance as well as promoting interactive behavior acquisition within an academic environment.