RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF BRAINSTORMING AND THINKPAIR-SHARE STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND RETENTION IN BIOLOGY

Abstract

The need for higher success in academic achievement of students in biology has always been the
concern of science teachers, educational assessors and evaluator. It is necessary to experiment
more student-centre methods of teaching. This study, therefore, ascertain the effects of
brainstorming and think-pair-share teaching strategies when compared with the usual
conventional teaching method. Two research questions were answered and two corresponding
hypotheses were tested. The quasi-experimental research design was employed. One hundred
and thirty-nine senior secondary school students were sampled. The biology achievement test
(BAT) with multiple choice questions was used as the instrument for data collection. The BAT
was subjected to face and content validity, while Kuder-Richardson method was used for the
reliability, which yielded a coefficient of 0.71. data were collected as pre-test, post-test, and
delayed post-test. Mean, standard deviation, and analysis of covariance were used as statistic
tools. Findings revealed that students showed higher academic achievement scores with the
think-pair-share and brainstorming strategies than the conventional method. Nevertheless, no
significant difference was found between the students taught biology with brainstorming and
think-pair-share strategies. The implication is that students will report higher academic
achievement when student-centre methods are employed in teaching biology in secondary
school.