Enhancing Students’ Achievement in Ecology Through Co-Operative Computer Instruction in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

The understanding of concepts of ecology appears to be difficult for most secondary school students compared to other topics in biology as evident from the poor performance of students in ecology as reported by WAEC. Therefore, this study investigated how Co-operative computer instruction (CCI) could enhance students’ achievement in ecology. Quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study. The sample consisted of sixty two students studying biology. Two schools were purposively selected in Odogbolu Local Government Area in Ogun State, Nigeria based on following criteria: presence of functional computer laboratories; availability of qualified biology teachers teaching SS 2 and public co-educational school. Students in the experimental group were taught using Co-operative computer instruction while those in the control group were taught using conventional method of teaching. The hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance and t-test at 0.05 level of significance. Ecology Achievement Test (EAT) with 0.68 was used for data collection. Students in experimental group recorded better and significant achievement in ecology than their counterparts in the control group and also CCI was gender friendly. It was recommended that there should be continuous capacity building of biology teachers on the effective use of CCI