Investigating the Effect of Inquiry and Lecture Methods on Students’ Achievement in Biology

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of inquiry and lecture methods on secondary school students’ achievement in Biology. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test, control group research design. Three hundred and twenty (320) Biology senior secondary school one students from nine (9) selected sampled schools in Delta Central Senatorial District were used as research sample. The simple random sampling technique was used to select the sampled schools. The experimental group was exposed to inquiry method while the control group was taught with lecture method. Biology Achievement Test (BAT) was used to collect data for both pre-test and post-test. A reliability coefficient of 0.77 was obtained using Kuder-Richardson Formula 21. Data collected was analyzed using statistics of mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that there was significant difference in the achievement of students instructed using the inquiry and the lecture method in favour of inquiry method; there was no significant difference in the achievement of male and female students instructed using the inquiry and the lecture methods. It was concluded that inquiry and lecture methods of teaching enhance students’ achievements Biology but inquiry method was more effective for the improvement of Biology students’ achievements. Based on this, recommendations were made.