EFFECTS OF VIRTUAL LABORATORY TECHNIQUE ON SENIOR SECONDARY TWO STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN BIOLOGY IN AKWANGA, NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigate the effects of virtual laboratory technique on senior secondary two students’ motivation in biology in Akwanga, Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated. This study adopted a quasi-experimental design, specifically the pretest posttest non-equivalent control group design where intact groups was assigned to the experimental and control groups. Intact classes was used in all the groups without randomization to avoid disruption of normal class lessons. Two groups were used: one was assigned the experimental groups while the second group was assigned the control group. The experimental group was exposed to the virtual laboratory (E) and the control group was exposed to closed door laboratory (C). The total of 109 males and 120 females students from two schools were sampled using purposive sampling technique from the total population of 229 SS two students that offered Biology during the 2023/2024 session from 4 public co-educational secondary schools. The instruments that was used for data collection in this study were Biology Motivation Questionnaire (BMQ) and Biology Performance Test (BPT). The validity of Biology Motivation Questionnaire (BMQ) was sought using Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and coefficient of 0.75 was obtained. Equally, the reliability of Biology Performance Test (BPT) items was sought using Cronbach alpha method and a coefficient of 0.92 was obtained. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result shows that there is improvement in the motivation mean scores of both the male and female students using virtual laboratory technique; however female students perform better than their male counterparts. Also, there is significant difference between the pre-test and post-test motivation mean scores of SS2 students in the experimental and control groups.