This study investigated the impact of inquiry and demonstration methods on attitude, retention and performance among secondary school physic students of varied ability in Kano, Nigeria. Quasi - experimental design was adopted for the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to select six schools out of thirty nine secondary schools in Dawakin Kudu Education Zone. Five hundred SSII Physics students of varied abilities were used for the study. Physics Performance Test (PPT) and Wave Concepts Attitude Scale Questionnaire (WCASQ) were used to collect data. The reliability of PPT and WCASQ was 0.89 and 0.97 respectively using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMC) statistics and Guttman Split - Half Coefficient formula. Six null hypotheses were tested at p≤0.05 levels of significance using one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), Kruskal Wallis test and Wilcoxon signedrank test statistics. And the following were the major findings: Students exposed to inquiry and demonstration methods performed and retained the learnt concepts significantly higher than their counterparts exposed to lecture method of teaching. There was no significance difference in students? performances with reference to gender and inquiry; demonstration methods are suitable for students of varied ability levels. There is significant difference in change of attitude and location between the students exposed to inquiry and demonstration methods and counterparts exposed to traditional method of teaching. On the basis of the findings outlined; recommendations were made for the improvement of teaching of the concepts of wave concepts within the context of teaching physics in secondary schools. One of the recommendations is that physics teachers should incorporate inquiry and demonstration methods more into the mainstream of pedagogy in the teaching of physics as they seem to have high potentials for enhancing understanding, performance, attitudinal change and retention on the part of the learners.