The study investigated the effects of inquiry-based and competitive learning strategies on academic performance of students’ in physics. Quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 2 schools out of 13-co-educational secondary schools in Ife south Local Government Area of Osun state. 95 SS II physics students were used for the study. Physics Achievement Test (PAT) and physics Ability Level Test (PALT) were used to collect data. The kuder-Richardson Coefficient of internal consistency for PAT and PALT were 0.82 and 0.86 respectively. Three hypotheses were tested at p<.05 level of significance using analysis of covariance. The result of the findings showed that the physics students taught with inquiry- based learning strategy performed significantly better than those taught with competitive learning strategy. There was no significant gender difference in the performance of students taught with inquiry-based and competitive learning strategies. It is recommended that inquiry-based learning strategy should be used in schools to teach various concepts in physics.

Key words: Inquiry-based, Competitive, Learning Strategies and Performance, Nigeria.