EFFECT OF INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN GENETICS

Abstract

A fundamental understanding of heredity and variation by secondary school students, predicate 
the need for teaching methods that foster critical thinking, problem solving and informed 
decision making which also promote interest and achievement gains in the subject. Thus, 
informing the current study which sought to examine the effect of inquiry-based learning (IBL) 
on secondary school students’ achievement in genetics. Despite earlier studies the need to 
address students’ achievement in genetics persists. Two research questions and two hypotheses 
guided he study. Quasi experimental pretest-post-test was the study design. Population of the 
study comprised 13, 596 biology students in Anambra State Public Secondary Schools. The 
sample size was made up of 300 SS3 biology students (134 male and 166 females) drawn from 
6 intact classes of 135 (54 males and 81 females) with experimental group 165 (80 males and 
85 females) and control group randomly assigned. The instruments for data collection Genetic 
Achievement Test (GAT) reliably established at coefficient of 0.86 respectively. Research 
questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while ANCOVA was used to test 
the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed a p-value of 0.000 in 
achievement. Hence, rejecting the corresponding null hypotheses. Also, with a p-value of 0.905 
for male and female students’ achievement, the result accepted the null hypotheses for 
achievement. By implication, students exposed to IBL achieved significantly higher 
achievement than those exposed to lecture method. However, there is no significant difference 
in male and female students’ mean achievement. Major contribution to knowledge of this study 
is that  this study established that exposure of secondary school students to IBL approaches is 
essential in enhancing  deeper learning for understanding of genetics and other science 
subjects, while improving their soft, investigative and critical thinking skills which are 
necessary in leveraging their future career paths and employability after school.