EFFECT OF IMPROVISATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS ON LEARNING BIOLOGY CONCEPTS BY SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN CHARANCHI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF KATSINA STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of improvisation of instructional materials on students’ achievement in Biology. The study employed a quasi-experimental design, specifically the pretestposttest nonequivalent group design. One hundred and forty (140) SS1 students from Charanchi Educational Zone of Katsina State formed sample of the study. Biology Achievement Test (BAT) instrument was used for data collection. Two research questions were answered and two hypotheses tested. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and ANCOVA. The result revealed that students taught using improvised instructional materials performed better than students taught using conventional material, male students did not perform better than their female counterparts in Biology: The result did not suggest ordinal interaction effect between method of teaching and gender on students’ achievements in Biology. There was no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of male and female students in Biology. The interaction effect of method of teaching and gender on students mean scores in Biology was not statistically significant. Based on the findings and implications, it was recommended that teaching of Biology in secondary schools should be conducted in a manner that students will be effectively taught with improvised instructional materials to enable them understand concepts in Biology.