Effects of Mind-Mapping Teaching Approach on Senior Secondary School Biology Students’ Interest in Ecological Concepts, Niger State, Nigeria.

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of Mind Mapping Teaching Approach (MMTA) on Senio, Secondary School Biology Students’ Interest in Ecological Concepts in Niger State, Nigeria, Two (2) research questions and two (2) research hypotheses were formulated for the study, The study adopted the pretest posttest control quasi experimental design. A sample of hundred (100) students of Senior Secondary School two (SSID) from two (2) SS schools of intact classes in Bida Metropolis were used for the study. The students were randomly assigned to experimental and control Groups (50 students) each in the two intact classes. The instruments used for data collection was the Ecological Concepts Interest Scale (ECIS) which was developed by the researcher and validated by experts. ECIS was used to determine the interest of the students. The test items were all subjected to face and content validity. The instrument was pilot-tested to ascertain the internal consistency and the reliability coefficient of 0.75 was obtained for ECIS respondents using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 20.00 versions. The research hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) to test the hypotheses formulated at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that MMTA improved the interest of students in ecological concepts than CTM. The study revealed no significant differences between the mean interest scores of male and female students taught with MMTA. MMTA also improved both male and female students' interest in biology. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that workshops/seminars should be organized by school authorities to update teachers' knowledge on applications of MMTA in teaching biology concepts and other science concepts.