POTENCY OF CULTURO-TECHNO-CONTEXTUAL APPROACH ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS MUTATION AND VARIATION
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ABSTRACT
The study looked at the usefulness of the Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach (CTCA) in increasing students’ biology achievement, with a particular focus on variation and mutation concepts. The study used a mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) approach and was led by two research questions and two hypotheses. The sample consisted of two schools chosen at random from Educational District 1 and a total of 60 students, 30 (17 males, 13 females) taught using CTCA and 30 (15 males, 15 females) taught using the traditional lecture approach. These schools were located in two different local government areas. Variation and Mutation Achievement Test (VMAT) and Variation and Mutation Questionnaire (VMQ)with a split-half reliability coefficient of 0.80 and 0.79 respectively, and an interview guide were used to collect data for the study. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test for significant difference between the two groups at 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed a statistically significant difference in the mean achievement scores of students taught using CTCA and those taught using lecture method in favour of the former [F(1,58)=0.00; p<.05). The study also revealed a significant difference in students’ attitude towards biology when taught using the Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach [F (1,28)= .048; P< 0.05]. Within the scope and limitations of the study, it was recommended that CTCA should be adopted by secondary schools Biology teachers in teaching variation and mutation.
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
1.0 Background of Study
Science is a methodical endeavor that creates and arranges knowledge in the form of verifiable explanations and universe-predictions (derived from the Latin word scientia, which means “knowledge”). One of science’s unique and significant goals is to help students develop the capacity to interpret natural occurrences. A few of the objectives of science education are to help students find proof and logic for statements made about observations made in the natural world, to find answers to questions sparked by inquisitiveness about commonplace events, and to help students describe, explain, and forecast the natural world. These goals are achieved through scientific explanation. Scientific explanation is done by breaking down hard concept and terms into smaller and understandable words so that it can be easily assimilated by the learners.
Scientific explanation, according to Krajcik and McNeill (2011), is an oral or written response to a topic that asks students to evaluate and interpret data in light of their scientific knowledge. An understandable description of events or phenomena seen in nature is called a scientific explanation. Consider phenomena that need a scientific explanation, such as raindrops falling from the sky, rainbows blooming in the afternoon sky, a bus going on the road, the process of photosynthesis, a child throwing up after eating unripe fruit, and fruits falling from the sky. Science is useless if it cannot explain such phenomenon mentioned above. A presupposition of most recent discussion has been that science sometimes provides explanations (rather than something that falls short of explanation—e.g., “mere description”) and that the task of a “theory” or “model” of scientific explanation is to characterize the structure such explanations. Scientific explanation indicates that an answer to a scientific question can only be deduced after fully considering and studying the evidence and the reason behind the event.
Amongst the three cardinal aim of science, which are prediction, control and explanation, explanation is the most important and germaine. Science explanation is the key to understanding scientific concept with correct evidences and being able to defend the answers anytime and anywhere with critical reasoning. The importance of explanations is underlined in the biological curriculum all over the world (William 2011). According to National science teachers’ association (NSTA, 2015) students are expected to construct their own explanations learnt from their teachers or reading. The question “Can you explain that?” is answered in various ways in classrooms. Classroom communities may “explain” by clarifying one’s meaning (providing definition), identifying a causal mechanism (explaining why something occurred), or justifying an idea (explaining why one believes the idea) (Braaten and Windschitl, 2011).
According to a recent study, students who actively participate in scientific explanations find it simple to comprehend scientific ideas and the essence of science. Developing explanations helps improve students’ comprehension of the scientific material. The capacity to explain occurrences demonstrates a thorough comprehension of science material (Katerine, David, and Joseph, 2004). With the use of scientific explanation, students can get a comprehensive understanding of science subjects and a thorough understanding of the nature of science and the ideals of scientists in the profession. According to Sadlar (2014), when students do explain anything, they frequently struggle to articulate and provide evidence for their ideas. According to Kuhn and Reiser’s (2005) research, secondary students face challenges when it comes to creating high-quality scientific explanations. They require assistance in defending their claims and arguments. According to research by Ruzi-Primo, Tsai, and Schneider (2010), students frequently omitted the three essential components of a thorough explanation—claim, evidence, and reasoning—in their written explanations, which may be a factor in why students score poorly on biology examinations. The low biology performance of secondary school students has been widely publicized. For example, Okafor and Okeke (2006) pointed out that students’ poor performance on the Senior School Certificate examination (SSCE) and our country’s regress in scientific and technical growth are caused by their inability to understand complex biological ideas.
Ineffective teaching strategies used by senior secondary school teachers are one of the main causes of low biology student performance. Biology teachers in senior secondary schools typically use the lecture technique or rote learning, where pupils rely on memorization without gaining a thorough comprehension of the material. The teacher frequently assumes complete control over the entire teaching process; rather than letting the students participate, ask questions, or gain a solid understanding of the material, the teacher frequently speaks to the pupils. One of the main causes of the failure was identified as the lecture method approach, which implies that teaching biology using only the conventional approach is not stimulating and engaging enough to encourage comprehension, insight, and retention of some abstract concepts. The incapacity to conduct thorough explanations in the biological subject matter is another contributing element. The majority of teachers lack the necessary skills to effectively teach the subject matter in the classroom. This is consistent with Okebukola’s (2010) observation of a concerning trend in students’ decreasing performance on tasks requiring scientific justifications. According to recent studies on challenging biology concepts, students struggle greatly with topics like genetics, ecology, and variation. Students struggle to understand and accurately respond to questions about variation and mutation, according to reports from the WAEC Chief Examiners (WAEC: 2010, 2011). Despite efforts to enhance biology performance through research, reports from researchers and the annual reports of the WAEC Chief Examiners have consistently documented students’ inability to correctly answer questions about complex concepts in fields like genetics, ecology, and evolution (Agboghoroma and Oyovivi, 2015). Similarly, variation and mutation were seen by pupils as challenging concepts, according to the Lagos State Research and Development Council’s e-learning readiness assessment of Lagos State students (Okebukola et al, 2015). It was also stated that a lot of teachers find it challenging to explain concepts like variation and mutation, which is why the majority of teachers in Nigeria’s senior secondary schools skip over teaching those challenging courses. It is clear that understanding variation and mutation requires scientific explanation. It is common knowledge that scientific explanations are not adequately taught to students; as a result, explanations were not practiced in the classroom, leading to the generation of students who are unable to write good explanatory responses. The majority of scientific students struggle with writing and have trouble supporting their ideas with evidence. Students are required to know and comprehend how to establish a claim, use evidence to support these assertions, and be able to defend the link between the claim and the evidence when they are asked to explain a concept. It is apparent that students are faced with difficulties in tasks demanding explanations in variation and mutation which cause the students to perform poorly in exams. Some previous studies reported that socio-cultural factors exert strong influence on the study of science variation and mutation is no exception to this assertion.
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