ABSTRACT
The purpose of
this research work was to investigate the impact of student-generated analogies
on students achievement in biology. The research design used in this work was
quasi experimental design. The sample size for this study comprised of 76
(seventy six) respondents. 37 (thirty seven) of the respondents were from
Iproin Estate Senior High School and 39 (thirty nine) of the respondents were
from Itolo Girls Senior High School Surulere. The research instruments used
were pre-test and post test. The pre-test are forty structured objective
questions in biology which was administered before the treatment period. The
posttest consisting of 40 items was administered after the treatment period to
test their achievement and gather data required for the analysis. The response
from the pre-test and post-test was analyzed using ANOVA. Two hypotheses were
raised (Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2). Hypothesis 1 revealed that there was
significant difference between students taught using students generated analogy
and those taught without students generated analogy. Hypothesis 1 which states
that there will be no significant difference in the gain score of students in
the experimental group and students in the control group. Students taught using
students generated analogy performed better than those taught without
students-generated analogy. Hypothesis 2 revealed that boys taught using
students-generated analogy performed better than females taught using
students-generated analogy. Experiments and findings of this study shows
without any doubt that there is need to use analogy during classroom teaching.
Teaching and learning will be effective when teacher and student understands
how to involve or use analogy during explanation of biological concepts. This
will help the students to understand the topic better.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGES
Title page i
Certification ii
Approval Page iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgement v
Abstract vi
Table of contents vii
CHAPTER
ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 5
1.3 Purpose of the Study 5
1.4
Significance of the Study 6
1.5 Research Questions 6
1.6 Research Hypotheses 6
1.7 Scope of the Study 7
1.8 Definition of Terms 7
CHAPTER
TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction 9
2.1 Achievement
in Biology 9
2.2 Studies in Teaching And Teaching Methods 11
2.2.1Strategies in Teaching Science 13
2.2.2 Demonstration
Method 14
2.2.3 Project Method 15
2.2.4 Discussion Method 16
2.2.5 Discovery Method 16
2.2.6 Expository Method 17
2.2.7 Metacognitive Strategies 17
2.2.8 Concept Mapping 18
2.3 Constructivist
Teaching Method: Constructivism 18
2.3.1 Student Generated Analogies 20
2.4.0 Meaning of Analogy 22
2.4.1 Studies on Analogy 23
2.5 Appraisal
of Literature Review 26
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction 27
3.1 Research Design 27
3.2 Area of the Study 27
3.3
Population of the Study 27
3.4
Sample and Sampling Technique 28
3.5
Research Instrument 28
3.5.1 Validity 29
3.6 Method of Data
Collection
39
3.8 Method of Data
Analysis 40
CHAPTER FOUR:
PRESENTATION OF RESULT AND DATA ANALYSIS
4.1
Data analysis and Presentation of Data 41
4.2
Summary of the Findings 45
CHAPTER FIVE:
DISCUSSIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.0
Introduction 47
5.1
Discussion of Results 47
5.2
Conclusions 48
5.3
Educational implication of the findings 48
5.4
Recommendations 48
5.5
Limitation of the studies 49
5.6
Suggestions for Further Research 50
5.7
Summary of the work 50
Reference 53
Appendix 55
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 a lot 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 shows there is a lot 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..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. Thesenew
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 WACE results for
Biology in May /June examination 2011 has about 58.8% failure rate ( Source: WAEC
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
i. The purpose of this study was
to investigate the impact of student-generated analogy
on student’s achievement in
biology.
ii. To know the differences in
performance between the male and female students taught
using student-generated
analogy.
1.4
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The significance of this study was that both the teacher and the
students have seen the usefulness of student generated analogy. The study would
make teaching and learning meaningful. The study would be useful for 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 that 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. What is the 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 students generated
analogy(experimental group) and those taught without student generated analogy
(control group).
2. There will be no significant difference in
performance between male and female students taught using student-generated analogy?
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of study was to examine the impact of students generated
analogy on students achievement in biology in two selected secondary schools within
Surulere local government area of Lagos state. The reason for the choice of the
two schools was:
That maximum cooperation was received from the teachers and the students
within the two selected schools.
The two schools chosen are
1. The two schools are Iporin Estate Senior High
School Surulere
2. Itolo Girls Senior Secondary school Surulere,
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
inrespect to 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 the student can be
able to explain, do or produce about a topic
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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