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

• Apochi, M. A

  Department of Science and Environmental Education, Faculty of Education, University of Abuja

• Ojelade I. A

  Department of Science and Environmental Education, Faculty of Education, University of Abuja

• Olubunmi, F. F

  Department of Science and Environmental Education, Faculty of Education, University of Abuja

This study investigated the Effects of Guided Discovery Instructional Strategy on Students’ attitude, towards biology 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 SSII 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 Attitude Scale (BAS). The trial test to determine coefficient of stability of Biology Attitude Scale (BAS) 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 Attitude Scale (BAS) items which gave a reliability index of 0.81. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics to answer the research questions while ANCOVA and Mann Whitney 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 attitude towards biology 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 improve attitude towards biology concepts in students.

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