EFFECTS OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING APPROACH ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN BIOLOGY IN UDI EDUCATION ZONE OF ENUGU STATE

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of Experiential Learning Approach (ELA) on secondary 
school students’ academic achievement in biology in Udi Education Zone of Enugu State. The 
study adopted a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent pretest-posttest control group design with 
a 2x2 factorial structure. The population of the study comprised of 1784 (792 males and 992 
females) senior secondary school two (SS2) biology students in all the government co
educational secondary schools in Udi Education Zone of Enugu State. A total of 84 (44 males 
and 40 females) SS2 biology students from two co-educational secondary schools were 
purposively selected and randomly assigned to experimental group and control group. The 
study was guided by two research questions and three null hypotheses, tested at a 0.05 level of 
significance. The instrument used for data collection was Biology Achievement Test (BAT), 
validated by three experts with reliability coefficients determined using Kuder-Richardson 20 
(KR-20) and yielding a value of 0.82. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the 
research questions, while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to test the 
hypotheses. Findings revealed that students taught Biology using ELA significantly 
outperformed those taught using LM in their academic achievement in Biology. Gender did 
not significantly influence achievement in Biology and there was no significant interaction 
effect between teaching method and gender on achievement of students in Biology. The study 
concluded that ELA enhances students’ achievement in biology more effectively than lecture 
method. Based on the findings, it was recommended that biology teachers should integrate 
ELA into instructional practices and those curriculum developers and education stakeholders 
consider ELA to improve science education outcomes.