Effects of Guided Discovery Instructional Strategy on Students' Retention, of Biology Concepts in Senior Secondary Schools in Federal Capital Territory- Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated Effects of Guided Discovery Instructional Strategy on Students’
retention of biology concepts in senior secondary schools in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja,
Nigeria. The study was a quasi-experimental, which involved intact classes groups of students
assigned to two treatment groups. The population of the study was 36,188 S. S.2 Biology Students
in Federal Capital Territory from which 102 students were sampled and assigned to the two groups
(experimental and control). Two research questions and two hypotheses tested at p< 0.05 level of
significance guided the study. The instruments used for data collection was Biology Retention Test
(BRT. The trial test to determine coefficient of stability of Biology Retention Test (BRT) was
carried out using the pilot-test reliability technique. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was
done using Pearson Product – Moment Correlation to determine the internal consistency of the
Biology Retention Test (BRT) items which gave a reliability index of 0.81. The data collected were
analysed using descriptive statistics to answer the research questions while ANCOVA were used to
test the hypotheses. The study revealed that Guided Discovery Instructional Strategy is more
effective than Conventional teaching method and that the male and female participants are very
similar in their mean scores for retention of biology concepts which implies that Guided Discovery
Instructional Strategy is not gender bias. It is therefore recommended among others that biology
teachers in senior secondary schools should adopt the use of guided discovery instructional strategy
in order to enhance retention of biology concepts in students.