EFFECT OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING METHOD ON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF BIOLOGY II STUDENTS IN ANIMAL NURTRITION IN JOS NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, PLATEAU STATE

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of cooperative learning on the achievement of students in Baptist High School Jos. The study employed a quasi-experimental design, specifically the pretest posttest nonequivalent group design. The population of the study comprised of all SSII biology students in Baptist High School Jos, while the sample comprised of 67 senior secondary (SSI) Biology students from two intact classes that were purposively and randomly selected. A class of 31 students was used as the control group while another 36 students was used as the experimental group. The instrument, Biology Achievement Test (BAT) used for data collection comprising of twenty objective questions was validated by experts. The control group was taught Animal Nutrition using lecture method while the experimental group was taught the same topic using cooperative learning method for two weeks. Pretest and Posttest were administered to the two groups before and after teaching respectively. Three research question guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The data obtained were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and t-test for independent sample. The result revealed that students taught using cooperative learning method performed better than students taught using the lecture method. This was because the mean score was higher for students taught with cooperative learning method compared to lecture method with lower mean score of students achievement. The mean score gain between the pretest and posttest scores was 16.50 in the cooperative learning group and 13.20 in the lecture method. These result shows that cooperative learning method is better than the lecture method. It was therefore recommended that the use of cooperative learning method should be adopted in the teaching of Biology in Secondary Schools.