Impact of ethnobiology-based instruction and peer tutoring on the achievement of senior secondary school biology students in Ogun state southwest Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of Ethnobiology-Based instruction Peer Tutoring on Achievement of Senior Secondary School Biology Students in Ogun State. The study employed Explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach. The quantitative approach was quasi experimental pretest-posttest non-equivalent group design. Three research questions and one hypothesis was formulated to guide the study. The population of the study comprised of all Biology students in public Senior Secondary Schools in Abeokuta zone. Purposive sampling technique was used to select six Public Schools from two zones (Abeokuta South and Abeokuta North). Biology students in six intact classes of SSS III took part in the study. The sample size of 313 biology students with 101 students in the experimental group 1 (48 male and 53 female), 117 students in the experimental group 2 (57 male and 60 female) and 95 students in control group (38 male and 57 female) which were taught the same biology content for a period of four weeks. The experimental groups received instructions through the use of Ethnobiology-Based Instruction and Peer Tutoring while the control group was taught using lecture method. The data gathering instruments were Biology Achievement Test (BAT) and Students Semi-structured Interview Guide (SSIG). The reliability coefficient of the BAT was established using test- retest and yielded 0.87. Descriptive statistics in form of mean, standard deviation and histogram plot were used to answer the research question while the hypothesis was tested using ANCOVA at 0.05 level of significance. The inferential analysis of hypothesis one has a significant difference on Students’ academic achievement in Biology (F (2,309) = 386.85; p < 0.05), this indicated that the hypothesis is hereby rejected since a significant difference is obtained. The results from the study revealed that the treatments positively improved the academic achievements of students and the students taught using ethnobiology-based instruction had higher test result and outperformed those in Peer Tutoring and lecture method group, but the students in Peer tutoring group also performed better than those in lecture method group. This implies that Ethnobiology-Based instruction is more effective in enhancing Students’ performance in biology and it helps to break barriers to meaningful learning of biology. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that Biology teachers should relate learning to students’ cultural views and encourage peer tutoring.