Effect of project work on secondary school students science process skill acquisition in biology

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of students’ project work on secondary school science process skills acquisition in Biology. The study was carried out in Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State. Three research questions guided the study and three null hypotheses were postulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The design of the study was quasi experimental design; specifically pre-test-post-test non-equivalent control group design. The sample consisted of one hundred and thirty four (134) SSII biology students. A Science Process Skill Acquisition Test (SPSAT) was used for Data Collection. The instrument was validated by experts and the reliability co-efficient obtained was 0.87 using the test-retest method in conjunction with the Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance for the hypotheses. The results revealed that students’ project work had a significant effect on science process skill acquisition in biology. It also revealed that Gender was not a significant factor in students’ science process skill acquisition in biology. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended among others that workshops and conferences should be organized to update the teachers’ knowledge on the use of students project work as an instructional strategy for enhancement of students’ acquisition of science process skills in biology.

Keywords: Project work, science process skill acquisition, gender