Browsing by Author "Oyelekan, Solomon Oloyede"

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    Analysis of senior school certificate examination chemistry questions for higher-order cognitive skills
    (Near East University, Turkey, 2015-09-26) Upahi, Johnson Enero; Issa, Ganiyat Bukola; Oyelekan, Solomon Oloyede
    Assessment as classroom activities is a fundamental process required to determine the extent to which intended learning outcomes has been achieved. Whatever form of assessment is employed to measure students’ learning, they should include tasks that are authentic, relevant and approximate skills students will need in real-life situations. These skills are well accentuated in the advocacy of the current reforms in science education to develop students’ higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) through question-asking, critical thinking and problem solving. Therefore, this research analyzes chemistry questions of senior school certificate examination conducted by the National Examination Council (NECO) within the framework of Bloom’s revised taxonomy of cognitive objectives. The source of data consisted of 257 questions drawn from 5 years examination, from 2010 – 2014. The results from this research indicated that about 80% and 44% of the questions require lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS) and factual knowledge respectively. The results further revealed that there was no question in the evaluate category of the HOCS, and none of the questions required students to apply metacognitive knowledge. The research concludes that the chemistry questions were not as cognitively demanding as they should be, and it is recommended that, examination should ensure that examination questions reflect the dual perspective of the Bloom’s revised taxonomy of cognitive process skills and the knowledge dimensions.
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    Effects of Mastery Learning Instructional Strategy on Senior School Students' Achievement in the Mole Concept.
    (Southwestern University, Texas, United States., 2015) Lamidi, Bashirat Titilope; Oyelekan, Solomon Oloyede; Olorundare, Adekunle Solomon
    Abstract Nigerian students have not been performing up to expectation in public chemistry examinations. One of the causes identified as being responsible for this is the teachers’ use of inappropriate instructional strategies. This study was conducted to determine the effects of mastery learning instructional strategy on secondary school students’ achievement in mole concept, a topic that has been empirically identified as contributing to the poor performance of candidates in School Certificate Chemistry. The study used a quasi-experimental design and followed the non-randomized, non-equivalent pre-test and post-test group design. Data were obtained from two intact classes in two purposively selected secondary schools in Ilorin South Local Government Area of Kwara State, Nigeria. The experimental group was taught the mole concept using mastery learning instructional strategy while the control group was taught using the conventional teaching method. The data obtained were analyzed using t-test and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) with the pre-test and post-test scores as covariates. It was found that students taught using the mastery learning instructional strategy performed better (mean score 15.50) than their counterparts in the control group (mean score 7.04). Furthermore, gender had no significant effect on the achievement of the students taught using the mastery learning instructional strategy. Results also showed a statistically significant covariance between scoring level and group. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that teachers should consider using mastery learning instructional strategy for chemistry instruction to improve the performance of their students in chemistry examinations.