eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Educational Research 2327-6150 2018-08-17 6 8 1172 1181 10.12691/education-6-8-16 EDUCATION20186816 article Godwin Kwame Aboagye aduaboagye@ucc.edu.gh 1 Theophilus Aquinas Ossei-Anto 1 Joseph Ghartey Ampiah 1 Department of Science Education, University of Cape Coast, Ghana Concepts in electric circuits are reported in literature as being problematic for students at all levels of pre-tertiary education [1] and the situation in Ghana is not different [2]. Hence, innovative ways of teaching are being explored by researchers to remediate the problem. This study, therefore, was premised on the fact that combining inquiry-based real hands-on and computer simulation methods with cooperative learning has the potential of improving students' learning outcomes. In all, 110 senior high school Form 2 students from two schools who participated were put into heterogeneous-ability and friendship cooperative learning groupings. Each group was taught electric circuits with the combination of inquiry-based real hands-on and computer simulation method. The aim was to compare the two groups in terms of their scientific reasoning and conceptual understanding. Within each group, the hypothetical-deductive and empirical-inductive students were also compared along the two learning outcomes. The results showed among others that the heterogeneous-ability group outperformed their counterparts in conceptual understanding of electric circuits but not scientific reasoning. Hypothetical-deductive and empirical-inductive students in the heterogeneous-ability group outperformed their counterparts in scientific reasoning and conceptual understanding. Implications of the findings for teaching and learning are discussed. http://pubs.sciepub.com/education/6/8/16/education-6-8-16.pdf learning outcome scientific reasoning hypothetical-deductive reasoning empirical-inductive reasoning conceptual understanding