EFFECT OF GUIDED DISCOVERY STRATEGY ON SCIENCE PROCESS SKILLS ACQUISITION AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL BIOLOGY STUDENTS IN KATSINA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the Effect of Guided Discovery Strategy on Science Process Skills Acquisition and Academic Performance Among Senior Secondary School Biology Students in Katsina State, Nigeria. The study has two research objectives, answered two research questions and tested two null hypotheses. The research design for the study was quasi-experimental and control group design involving pretest and posttest. The population of the study comprised of 12,328 (6,754 male and 5,574 female) SS II Biology students from 23 public senior secondary schools in Katsina Zonal Education Quality Assurance. The sample of 95 students which selected from the total population of 12,328  were drown from 23 core educational schools in Katsina Zonal Education Quality Assurance public seco-educational schools were selected using purposive sampling technique. A sample of (95) senior secondary school students consisting of 115 males and 67 females biology students were randomly selected and used for the study. The validated instruments  Biology Performance test (BPT) was used by the researcher for data collection with the reliability coefficient of 0.789 respectively. The research questions were answered using mean and standard  deviation while  the null hypotheses is tested at 0.05 level of significance using independent sample t-test. The findings of the study reveal that, there is significant difference in the mean science process skills acquisition and the mean score of academic performance of biology students exposed to guided discovery strategy and those exposed to conventional lecture method in favor of the students taught biology using guided discovery strategy. The study was therefore concluded that, Guided Discovery Strategy have significant effect on the students science process skills acquisition and academic performance in biology. It was recommended among others that, teachers of biology should expose students to Guided Discovery Strategy so as to improve their cognitive and psychomotor skills.