IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVING STUDENTS' CONFIDENCE LEVEL IN SOLVING ECOLOGY-RELATED PROBLEMS USING SCIENCE- BASED PUZZLES AND SPACED TEACHING APPROACHES? A FIELD REPORT

The study investigated the possibility of improving students’ confidence level in solving ecology-related problems using science-based puzzles and spaced teaching approaches. A pretest, post-test, control group, quasi-experimental research design was adopted in this study. The instruments used for data collection was Ecology Confidence Scale Integrated with Test (ECSIT). ECSIT and the lesson plans were validated by three experts in Science Education/Measure and Evaluation. Kuder Richardson (KR-21) formula was used to test 
internal consistency of ECSIT which yielded a reliability value of 0.96. The population of the 
study was 8,571 students offering biology comprising 4,602 males and 3,969 females in 2,283 
senior secondary schools in Benue State. The sample for this study was 281 SS2 Biology students from six government grant aided secondary schools in Benue State drawn using Multistage sampling technique. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The research questions were answered using frequency count and percentage 
distribution scores while the null hypotheses were tested using results from Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The study revealed that the observed mean difference in the confidence scores among the groups was significant [F2, 274=3346.99, P<0.05]. It was found that there is no significant difference between the mean confidence level of male and female students taught Ecology using Science-Based Puzzles Approach (SPA) [F1, 91 =1.25, P>0.05] 
and Spaced Teaching Approach (STA) respectively [F1, 89 =5.83, P>0.05]. It was recommended among others that Biology teachers should be encouraged to use science-based puzzle and spaced teaching approaches in their lessons so as to improve students’ confidence in solving ecology-related problems.