EFFECTS OF CASE-BASED AND OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN CHEMISTRY IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA
Okediji Adejare Alabi
& F,A. Adesoji
Department of Integrated Science, Federal College of Education (Tech.) Akoka, Lagos.
Department of Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, University of Ibadan.
Email: adejare.okediji@yahoo.com, francisadesoji@yahoo.com
Abstract Students’ achievement in Chemistry in Lagos State seems not to be encouraging, a trend attributed partly to persistent usage of teacher-centered instructional methods. This necessitates the adoption of students-centered instructional strategies such as theCase-based and Observational learning strategies. The effectiveness of these two instructional strategies in the teaching of Chemistry has however not been properly documented. This study, therefore, investigated the effects of Case-based and Observational learning strategies on students ‘achievement in Chemistry in Lagos State. The moderator effects of gender was also examined. The study adopted a pretest-posttest, control group, quasi experimental design. The study sample consisted of three hundred and sixty eight students (188 males, 180 females)Senior Secondary School two (SSII) students which are from purposively selected nine different public schools in Educational District I, Educational District II and Educational District VI which were randomly selected from the six Educational Districts of Lagos State. Three schools were used in each of the experimental groups (1and11) and three schools were used as the control groups. Trained Chemistry teachers were used as research assistants for the purpose of this research. In all, a total of nine (9) Chemistry teachers and three hundred and sixty eight (188 male and 180 female) students participated in the study. However, intact classes were used and randomly assigned to treatment. The five instruments used were Students Chemistry Achievement Test, and instructional guides for Case-based, Observationalandmodifiedconventional strategies. Two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using Analysis of Covariance and Tukey post-hoc test. Treatment had a significant main effect of treatment on students’ achievement in Chemistry (F (2,349) = 21.12: P<0.05; η2 = 0.108). Case-Based learning strategy had the highest posttest mean score followed closely by those exposed Observational learning and modified