Interactive Effect of Gender, Mode of Schooling and Orientation Instructional Strategy On Secondary School Students' Performance in Biology in Ekiti State

The study examined interactive effect of gender, mode of schooling and orientation instructional strategy on secondary school students’ performance in biology in Ekiti State. The study adopted pre-test, post-test quasi-experimental design. The population of the study consisted of all SS2 students offering Biology in Ekiti state. The sample comprised 200 students offering Biology and was selected through multi-stage sampling procedure. Biology Achievement Test (BAT) was used for data collection. It consisted of two sections A and B. The validity of the instrument was ascertained by experienced Biology teacher and experts in Tests and Measurement. The reliability coefficient of 0.83 was obtained for BAT using split-half alpha reliability.  The research procedure was in three stages: the pre-treatment stage, the treatment stage and the post-treatment stage. The data collected were analyzed using inferential statistics. The hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the use of orientation before and after the teaching of Biology is a good strategy to enhance students’ achievement in Biology. However, male students performed significantly higher than their female counterparts in Biology after orientation while day schools’ students exposed to orientation achieved significantly higher than boarding schools’ students in Biology. It was recommended that orientation instructional strategy in public school settings should be broadly conceived and involve a coordinated team approach in order to meet the needs of a diverse population of students irrespective of their gender and mode of schooling.

Keywords: Biology, Gender, Mode of Schooling, Orientation Instructional Strategy, Performance,