Effects of a Cooperative Learning Module on Students' Achievement and Attitudes towards Classification of Organisms in Biology in Selected Secondary in Nakuru District, Kenya

Abstract

Biology is one of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (K.C.S.E) subjects that registered a poor performance by learners between the years 1997 and 2000. Poor teaching methods are some of the reasons put forward to explain this poor performance. This study was designed to explore the effectiveness of a co-operative learning intervention on students’ achievement and attitude towards the classification of organisms in school biology. The study was carried out in Nakuru district, Kenya, where a persistent low student‘s achievement in the subject has been registered. A quasi-experimental research design, the Solomon-Four- Group design was employed in the study. Four schools were purposely selected from the l40 secondary schools and randomly assigned to serve as the experimental group (E), control group l (C1), control group ll (C2) and control group lII (C3). The co-operative learning method was used to teach classification of organisms to the experimental group and control group ll (C2). The true control groups, control group I and control group Ill were taught using the conventional methods. Data was collected from a sample of 165 form three students from four secondary schools in Nakuru district using two instruments namely, the Biology Achievement Test (BAT) and Students Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ). Two groups, the experimental group E and the true control group l (C1), were pre-tested, while the second and third control groups (C; and C3) were not. All groups were taught the same course content for a period of five weeks with the experimental groups receiving their instruction via the cooperative leaming mode and the true control groups using the conventional methods of teaching. A post-test was administered to all groups after the completion of instruction on the biology topic on classification of organisms. Data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 9. T-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to test hypotheses. The levels of significance were computed at <>c=0.()5. The results of the study indicate that subjects in the experimental group outperformed the control group in the achievement and attitude tests. It can therefore be concluded that the cooperative leaning module used by the subjects in the experimental group led to a relatively higher achievement in the learning of biology as compared to the conventional learning used by subjects in the control group. The findings further indicate that students developed a positive attitude towards the subject. Science teachers, teacher educators and policy makers will benefit from the results and recommendations of the study in that they will provide them with an alternative teaching approach capable of fostering the learners’ altitude towards biology, and thus improving their achievement in the subject.