Effects of Constructivists' Learning Strategies on Senior Secondary School Students Achievement and Retention in Biology

Abstract

The study investigated the effects of constructivists' learning strategies on students' achievement and retention in Biology in selected Senior Secondary Schools in Owo Local government of Ondo State. The study adopted a pre-test, post-test, control, retention, quasi experimental design. A total of one hundred and sixty students from two co-educational schools participated in the study. 80 students served as experimental group while 80 served as the control group. Three research instruments were used for the study. These were Biology Achievement Test, teacher's instructional guide on: constructivists' strategies and instructional guide on conventional method. Two research questions and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 levels of significance. Analyses of data were carried out using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA). The result obtained showed that there were significant main effects of treatment on students' achievement and retention in experimental group. Male students had higher achievement score than their female counterparts in the experimental group. The implication is that the constructivists' learning strategies should be emphasized more than the conventional method in order to enhance performance of students in Biology, students' learning and social relations relative to more traditional whole-class method of teaching.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n27p627