Achievement Motivation and Students’ Achievement in Secondary Biology: Is the Relationship Mediated by Cognitive Style?

Abstract

Scientific and technological skills are needed for survival and economic prosperity in the 21st century. However, students persistently perform poorly in science subjects at the senior secondary school level. Thus, this study determined the mediating influence of cognitive style on the relationship between academic motivation and students’ academic achievement in senior School Biology in Remo North Local Government Area of Ogun State. The descriptive survey research design was adopted to conduct the research. The sample consisted of 180 students randomly selected from ten public senior secondary schools out of the 13 public schools present in the local government area. Data were collected using three instruments: Cognitive Style Questionnaire (r=0.71); Academic Motivation Scale (r=0.72); and Students’ Achievement Test in Biology (r=0.82). The data collected were analysed using regression and t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that cognitive styles significantly mediated the relationship between academic motivation and students’ academic achievement in Biology. It was also found that there was no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of field-dependent and field-independent learners. The study concluded that cognitive style is a potent factor in the learning of Biology in senior secondary school. Although students can be motivated to learn, aligning instructional activities with their cognitive style by biology teachers is more important than motivation. Therefore, school counsellors should always help to classify students into their cognitive styles at the beginning of the session to enable teachers to tailor instructional activities to meet their learning needs.