THE STATUS OF INDIVIDUAL LEARNING VERSUS COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN ENHANCING SCIENCE CONCEPT SKILLS AND CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL SCIENCE STUDENTS

Olatunbosun E. Ogunseemi and Olufunke O. Boris

Department of Integrated Science, College of Education, Ikere Ekiti

Department of Curriculum studies & Instruction, College of Education, Ikere Ekiti

ABSTRACT

The task of teaching students science concepts meaningfully is sometimes rather complicated, and is too often not fulfilled. As science continues to influence our world more and more, it is important that we learn to make science sensible and accessible to more people. This formed the basis for the investigation on the status of individual learning versus cooperative learning in enhancing Science Concept Skills and Critical Thinking Skills among Senior Secondary School Science Students. A total of 48 subjects participated in this study, which were Senior Secondary School Two (SSS II) Students from Six Secondary Schools in Ado Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The treatment comprised of two part, both Chalk and Talk and Activity oriented Teaching were administered simultaneously to two groups to prevent the effect of any extraneous variables. There are Cooperative Learning group and Individual Learning group. The same contextual grading was given to both groups which comprised of both Science Concept Items and Critical Thinking Items. The statistical analysis on the pre and post test scores of both groups using T-test analysis showed that students who participated in Cooperative Learning performed significantly better on the Critical Thinking Test than students who studied Individually. And also, that both groups did equally well on the Science Concept Test.