EFFECTS OF CONTEXT AND INQUIRY BASED INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN BIOLOGY IN NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study determined the effects of context and inquiry based instructional approaches on students’ interest in Biology in Niger State. The research adopted a quasi-experimental research design (pretest, posttest, non-equivalent, non-randomised experimental design). The population of the study was 57,947 Senior Secondary School two (SSII) students. The sample for the research study is 305 students, comprising 149 male and 156 female drawn from six co-educational senior secondary schools selected randomly through a stratified sampling technique. The instruments for data collection was Interest Inventory Instrument on Ecological Concepts (IIIEC) which was Questionnaire on Context and Inquiry Based Instructional Approaches, administered to students immediately after posttest to determine students’ interest in Ecology after being exposed to the two instructional Approaches. The Instrument was subjected to face and content validation by 3 experts. The instrument was also pilot tested and reliability coefficient of r = 0.91 was obtained. Mean and Standard deviation was used to answer the three research questions, ANOVA was used to analyse research hypothesis one while Mann Whitney U-test was used to analyse research hypotheses two and three. The results revealed that the two approaches were very effective in enhancing the interest of biology students. The study also discovered that there was no significant difference in the mean interest scores of male and female students taught Ecological Concepts with Context-Based Instructional Approach while there was significant difference in the mean interest scores of male and female students taught Ecological Concepts with Inquiry-based instructional approach in favour of the female students.