BIOLOGY TEACHERS’ AWARENESS AND UTILIZATION OF INNOVATIVE TEACHING STRATEGIES IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN SOUTH WEST, NIGERIA
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Date
2020
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UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN
Abstract
Various innovative teaching strategies have been developed by educators and found to positively influence students’ academic performance when utilised. Unfortunately, students continue to perform below expectation in Biology, hence, the assumption of teachers not using varied forms of teaching strategies to cope with difficulties associated with its teaching and learning. This study investigated biology teachers’ awareness and utilisation of selected innovative teaching strategies in senior schools in South-west, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to determine: (i) the level of Biology teachers’ awareness of innovative teaching strategies; (ii) level of utilisation of innovative teaching strategies in Biology classroom and, the influence of (iii) gender (iv) academic qualification (v) year of teaching experience on Biology teachers’ level of awareness and utilisation of the teaching strategies; and (vi) problems facing the utilisation of selected teaching strategies.
A descriptive research of the survey type was adopted for the study. The population consisted of all science teachers in senior secondary school, South-west of Nigeria. The target population was all biology teachers in senior secondary school, South-west of Nigeria, while the sample comprised 622 biology teachers purposively selected from Ekiti, Osun, Oyo and Lagos States. A researcher designed questionnaire with reliability coefficient of 0.84 was used to collect data from the respondents. Frequency and percentage, t-test and Analysis of variance were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.
The findings of the study were that:
i. Biology teachers (98.0%) are highly aware of the selected innovative teaching strategies;
ii. less than half (44.0%) of the teaching strategies were frequently utilized by Biology teachers;
iii. the least utilised strategies were the Z-A approach (15%), Jigsaw (15.5%), Mnemonic-word-words approach (21.5%) and Mind map (25.3%);
iv. gender had no significant influence on either the Biology teachers’ level of awareness or on their utilisation of teaching strategies;
v. academic qualification had no significant influence on Biology teachers’ level of awareness but significantly influenced the level of their utilisation of teaching strategies (F(1,560)=2.142, p<0.05);
vi. there was a significant difference among less experienced, experienced and highly experienced Biology teachers on their level of awareness of innovative teaching strategies, in favour of the highly experienced teachers F(2,549)=4.639,p<0.05;
vii. years of teaching experience had no significant influence on Biology teachers’ level of utilisation of teaching strategies; and
viii. problems associated with inadequate utilisation of the innovative teaching strategies include: non-availability of teaching resources, strategies being demanding and stressful, poor motivation for teachers, absence of in-service training for teachers, and students’ non-commitment to extra effort needed.
The study concluded that Biology teachers’ level of awareness of innovative teaching strategies was high, however, utilisation was low. This implies that the Biology students will be denied the benefits attached to the use of innovative teaching strategies. The study recommended that utilisation of innovative teaching strategies should be encouraged.
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BIOLOGY TEACHERS, AWARENESS, UTILIZATION, INNOVATIVE TEACHING STRATEGIES, SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS, SOUTH WEST, NIGERIA