ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research
work was to investigate the impact of student-generated analogies on student's
achievement in biology. To achieve this two research questions was raised the
first one was, what is the impact of student- generated analogy on student's
achievement in Biology? The second question was what is the difference in
performance between male and female students taught using student generated analogy.
Two hypotheses were also formulated. Hypothesis (1) states that there will be
no significant difference in performance between students taught using
student-generated analogy and those taught without student- generated analogy.
Hypothesis 2 states that there will be no significant difference in performance
between male and female students taught using student-generated analogy.
The sample size for this study comprised of 76 (seventy six)
respondents. 37 (thirty seven) of the respondents were from Ipori Estate Senior
High School and 39 (thirty nine) of the respondents were from Itolo Girls
Senior High School Surulere. The quasi experimental design was the research
instruments used while Biology achievement test involving a pretest and a
posttest was used. The pre-test were forty structured objective questions in
biology which was administered before the treatment period while the posttest
consist of forty structured questions which was administered after the
treatment.
The response from the achievement test was analyzed using ANOVA.
The findings revealed that there was significant difference in performance
between students taught using students generated analogy and those taught
without students generated analogy. Thus students taught using students- generated
analogy performed better than those taught without students-generated analogy,
Males taught using students-generated analogy performed better than females
taught using students-generated analogy.
Findings of this study show without any
doubt that there is need to use analogy during classroom teaching. Teaching and
learning will be effective when teacher and student understand how to use
analogy during explanation of biological concepts. This will help the showed to
understand the topic better. Educational Implication of the findings is that
Analogy is a powerful cognitive mechanism that people use to make inference and
learn new abstractions. It enhances human cognition and it is applied in solving real world problems. It
helps and advises on educational philosophy, educational practice and in the
design of educational software.
TABLE OF CONTENT
TITLE
PAGES
Title page i
Certification
page
ii
Approval
page
iii
Acknowledgment
iv
Abstract v
Table of contents vi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background to the study 1
1.2
Statement of the Problem 4
1.3
Purpose of the Study 5
1.4
Significance of the Study 5
1.5 Research
Questions 5
1.6 Research Hypotheses 6
1.7 Scope of the Study 6
1.8 Definition of Terms 6
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction 8
2.1 Achievement in Biology 8
2.2 Studies in Teaching And Teaching
Methods 10
2.2.1Strategies in Teaching Science 11
2.2.2 Demonstration Method 13
2.2.3 Project Method 14
2.2.4 Discussion Method 14
2.2.5 Discovery Method 14
2.2.6 Expository Method 15
2.2.7 Meta-cognitive Strategies 15
2.2.8 Concept Mapping 15
2.3. Student Generated Analogies 16
2.4.1 Meaning of Analogy 19
2.4.2 Studies on Analogy 21
2.5 Summary
of the Literature Review 23
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction 24
3.1 Research Design 24
3.2 Area of the Study 24
3.3
Population of the Study 24
3.4
Sample and Sampling Technique 25
3.5 Research Instrument 25
3.5.1 Validity 26
3.5.2 Procedure for Data Collection
26
3.5.3 Pre Treatment Procedure
27
3.6 Method of Data Collection 35
3.7 method of Data Analysis
35 39
CHAPTER
FOUR: PRESENTATION OF RESULT AND DATA ANALYSIS
4.1 Data analysis and Presentation of Data
36
4.2 Summary of the Findings 40
CHAPTER
FIVE: DISCUSSIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.0 Introduction 41
5.1 Discussion of Results 41
5.2 Conclusions 42
5.3 Educational implication of the
findings 42
5.4 Recommendations 42
5.5 Limitation of the study 43
5.6 Suggestions for Further Research 44
5.7 Summary of the work 44
Reference 47
Appendix
49
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Scientific research especially
in the 21st century has greatly increased the understanding of the
world around us. This has brought a lot of changes in different areas of human
endeavor, like in the area of Education, Health, Power, Industry, Environment
etc. It has promoted better living and good practices. There has been
tremendous increase in research which led to a lot of discoveries in science
and technology. All these innovations and developments are interrelated and
dependent on each other. Natural science has witnessed a lot of improvement recently
and science in this century had displayed in the area of innovation and
technology and has shown a great potential in transforming human life and the
world around him. The development of science and technology is of paramount
importance to the society and the nation at large, that is why a lot of
emphasis is being placed on it recently in our schools.
Student’s perception of
science and their state of mind in the class shown in the type of questions
they ask shows there is alot of bias and misconceptions about science. This
could be a serious barrier in the teaching and learning of science and it has
hindered the student’s understanding of science. Biology in particular is
seriously affected by these misconceptions which led to consistent poor performance
in the subject. It is a pointer that biology has not been properly handled in
our schools. Result of external examinations like WAEC, SSCE, NECO JAMB, and
internal examinations is good example of this. The WEAC result of 2011 shows
there was 58.8% failure in biology (source WAEC Yaba) There is need to examine
some of the strategies and methods employed by teachers in schools, this is
because the teaching method and strategies used by the teacher has a profound
effect on the student’s performance in their examinations. An efficient teacher
uses different strategies and teaching methods to buttress, emphasize and
clarify his or her concept clearly.
There are meta-cognitive strategies, which
includes knowledge about when and how to use a particular strategy for learning
or for problem solving. The strategy can be student’s thinking and their
physical actions. Some meta-cognitive strategies are student-generated concept
mapping. This could be seen in reading comprehension. According to (Kang 2004)
research has shown that visual displays has the potential for making content
information more understandable to readers and offers assistance in making
connections between concepts. Visual displays, such as diagrams, maps,
graphics, organizers and pictures can be used as a type of reading strategy by
possibly converting difficult information into a simplified layout.
Concept mapping supports the visualization of such conceptual
framework and stimulate prior knowledge by making it explicit and requiring the
learner to pay attention to the relationship between concepts (Sohannsen 1996).
Students acquire new concept by both discovery and knowledge or by reception
learning according to (Novak 1983). Reception learning has a problem of making
students learn to memorize definitions instead of acquiring the meaning of the
concept in the definition.
Constructivism is another meta-cognitive strategy. It is a theory
about knowledge and learning. It emphasizes the importance of knowledge, belief
and skills an individual brings in to the experience of learning. It sees and
accepts construction of new understanding as a combination of readiness to
learn and the application. Individuals make choices about what new ideas to
accept and how to fit it into their established views of the world (Brook and
Brooks 1995).In school, students are supposed to acquire certain skills that
will help them perform well in the laboratory and in the field. They are to
acquire skills and abilities to be able to apply scientific knowledge to
everyday life in personal matters, society and the environment in general.
Students should be able to have relevant and functional scientific attitudes
especially in biology. Some strategies has been verified by some researchers
and found to be good for effective teaching and learning in biology, they need
to be improved upon. Such viable technique for teaching that has been reported
to record a good measure of success is the use of analogy in teaching.
Analogy is an agreement or similarity in some particulars between
things otherwise different eg, Photosynthesis and Respiration, Osmosis and Diffusion
'etc. Thinking in terms of analogy involves the transfer of prior knowledge
from a familiar situation to a situation that should be elucidated (Gentner,
1983). The identification and retrieval of a similarity between the potential
relations in a target and known relations in the source enables one to
understand the new situation on the basis of a familiar situation. Analogy may
motivate students because it points to some anomaly or cause some surprise. It
usually aids learning in specific areas of target domains. The use of analogy
as an effective pedagogical tool has been of interest to the Biology Education Research Community. Strategy that can
be beneficial to students is to require them to generate analogies. When
students generate analogies, the learning process becomes active. They must
think about the topic enough to create an analogy that makes sense. Not only
will they learn more about the biological concept, they will be using a
creative type of thinking called Lateral Thinking.
"Lateral Thinking"(De Bono 1970) is the one which asks
the mind to abandon the normal sequential thinking patterns and make a lateral
leaf to devise new thought patterns. Making analogies sets the stage for
devising new thought patterns. Students start with analogies that make sense
and later make analogies that seemingly do not make sense until creativity and
new thought patterns have been devised. These new analogies help students to
see the concept in a new way which gets them thinking and help them in the
areas of critical thinking and problem-solving. Analogy is a comparison of one
thing with another which has similar features. Example, the teachers draws
analogy on the human heart and the pump, photosynthesis and respiration,
Osmosis and diffusion. Analogy involves the transfer of prior knowledge from a
familiar situation to a situation that should be elucidated. It is being able
to identify and retrieve a similarity between the potential relations in a
target and known relation in the source which enables one to understand the new
situation on the basis of a familiar situation. Analogy can be beneficial to
students in a number of ways. It makes learning process to become active.
Students have to understand the topic well enough before they can be able to
create analogy. This will enable them to learn more concepts and become more
creative in thinking. Making analogies sets the stage for devising new thought
patterns. Analogy help students to see the concepts in a new way that gets them thinking and help in the area of critical thinking and problem
solving, example of analogy for the concept of translation in protein
synthesis. It is based on four components namely “target”, “source”, “match”
and “mismatch’. The target is the unfamiliar, abstract material to be learnt.
It could be a concept, principle, procedure or a problem .The source concept is
a familiar visualizable material that is obtained from the surrounding or from
situation in the environment. “Match refers to the similarities shared between
the corresponding features of the source concept and the sub concepts of the
target concept. The definition of analogy is a concrete and visualizable
representation of the matches and mismatches between the “source” and target
concepts. The teaching method has a profound effect on the performance of the
students.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Students are prepared to
acquire skills, knowledge, functional abilities in biology which will help them
to handle their academic and everyday life affairs, but it has been observed
from the past school results that students performance is deteriorating each
year in biology than any other basic science subject. The statistics of WASSCE
results for Biology in May /June examination 2011 has about 58.8% failure rate
( Source: WASSEC Yaba). This gave rise to the quest for the way to teach the
student so that they can be deeply involved in the topic being treated for
better understanding and better performance. Hence the need for research in
other way of teaching like student-generated analogy.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
- The purpose
of this study was to investigate the impact of student-generated analogy
on student’s achievement in biology.
- To find out
if there are differences in performance between the male and female
students taught using student-generated analogy.
1.4
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The
study would make teaching and learning more meaningful. It would encourage
creative thinking and encourage active participation of students. It would help
to raise student’s interest in generating analogy. It would also encourage teachers to adopt the
method of student- generated analogy so as to plan ahead of the lesson and know
the best analogy to drive home the points intended in teaching .The study would
be of immense value to authors and other researcher in encouraging them to
write more books on student - generated analogy. Curriculum planners are given
the opportunity to see the need to plan the curriculum in a way to encourage
the use of student generated analogy in the teaching and learning of Biology so
as to appeal to the learner’s senses and to make sure it does not fall short of
the needs of the society.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.
What is the impact of
student-generated analogy on student’s achievement in biology?
2.
There will be no significant
difference in performance between male and female students taught using
student-generated analogy.
1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
1.
There will be no significant
differences in achievement between students taught using student-generated
analogy(experimental group) and those taught without student- generated analogy
(control group).
2.
What is the difference in
performance between male and female students taught using student-generated
analogy?
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of the study was to examine the
impact of student-generated analogy on student’s achievement in biology in two
selected secondary schools within Surulere local government area of Lagos
state. The two schools chosen are Iporin Estate Senior High School and Itolo
Girls Senior Secondary School Surulere, the reason for the choice of the two
schools was that maximum cooperation was received from the teachers and the
students within the schools.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
ANALOGY
Analogy can
be viewed as a type of reasoning where knowledge is transferred from one
situation (called source or base) to another one (called target) on the basis
of some kind of similarity between both situations i.e. on the basis of the
judgment that the two situations are essentially identical in respect of the task
at hand.
BIOLOGY
Biology is
the study of plant and animal in their natural environment
STUDENTS
This
means a person who is studying at a college, polytechnic or university; boy or
girl attending schools; anyone who studies or who is devoted to the acquisition
of knowledge.
STUDENT GENERATED
It
means what students can create or produce. New ideas they can bring in that is
relevant to the topic under discussion.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE:
This
refers to the level or rate at which students in school perform in their
academic career. It also shows the level at which students carry out their
school works at a given period of time and the result of it.
INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
It
means anything that assists teachers to teach well in the classroom and also
those things that help students to learn well in the classroom.
TEACHING
It means the art and practice of imparting to
a learner knowledge, skills, values and norms that will be useful to the total
development of the individual.
ELUCIDATE
To make clear, explain, throw light on (a
problem or difficulty)
CONCEPT
Idea underlying a class of things, general
notion.
CREATIVE
Having power to create requiring
intelligence and imagination, not merely mechanical skill.
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