Comparing the efficacy of two teaching strategies on students’ attitudes towards biology: A case in Ashanti Mampong municipality, Ghana

Abstract

Biology is an essential and compulsory subject offered at all senior high schools in Ghana. However, the level of students’ attitude towards biology has been seen to be a result of the use of less motivating teachers’ instructional strategies. This research study examined the effect of concept mapping and cooperative learning strategies on enhancing students’ attitudes towards the development of biology in two selected deprived science-based senior high schools within the Ashanti Mampong municipality of Ghana. The study used a quasi-experimental design involving a 3 x 2 multi-factorial analysis with a positivist paradigm. A purposive sampling technique was used to obtain 498 biology students for the study. Three research instruments, the biology attitude questionnaire (BAQ), student verbal ability test items and the students’ performance test (SPT) were used in collecting the data. The results showed that the intervention improved students' attitudes towards learning biology and the development of biology activities using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in a statistical package for social science version 20. Therefore, the two strategies enhanced students’ attitudes towards the subject in the two selected institutions within the Ashanti Mampong Municipality of Ghana. The two instructional strategies should therefore be emphasized, adopted and enforced in the teaching and learning of biological concepts among all deprived science-based senior high school students in Ghana where appropriate learning and teaching resources are scarcely unavailable and elsewhere in related challenges.