EFFECT OF FIELD TRIP ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN ECOLOGY IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study examined the effect of field trip teaching strategy on senior secondary one (SS1) students’ achievement in ecology in Anambra state. Two research questions guided the study and three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level. The study adopted quasiexperimental design specifically, non-randomized control group design.  Multistage sampling was used to draw a sample size of 148 SS1 students from 33 co-educational schools in Nnewi Education Zone of Anambra state from a population of 20,536 students. Two intact classes were randomly assigned to experimental group and control group respectively. The validated instrument tagged “Biology Achievement Test” (BAT) with reliability estimate of 0.89 was used to collect data for the study. The experimental group was taught ecology using field trip while the control group was taught using conventional lecture method. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance was used to test the null hypotheses. The findings of the study showed among others that the use of field trip (FTIS) is more effective in enhancing students’ achievement in ecology than the conventional lecture method (CLM). Also, there was no significant difference in the students’ achievement in ecology due to gender. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that curriculum planners should incorporate field trip wherever possible in the teacher’s activities of SS1 biology curriculum to enable students gain firsthand information and provide opportunity for them to see, possibly touch and feel what they have heard about certain organisms and situations.