Fostering high, medium and low ability senior secondary school students’ genetic achievement utilizing integrated stem approach in Minna, Niger State

Abstract

Promoting equity among learners with different abilities is an important goal of science education. Lack of equity could be detrimental to medium and low ability students’ interest, and achievement in science. Consequently, this could negatively impact national development. Thus, this study enhancing high, medium and low ability senior secondary school students’ genetic achievement employing integrated STEM approach was examined. Quasi-experimental pretest, post-test control group design. The sample size consisted of 100 senior secondary school students. Using simple random sampling, fifty-one students with different academic abilities (low, medium and high) were assigned to the experimental group. While 49 low, medium and high ability students to the control group. The experimental group was instructed on the topic of genetics with Integrated STEM Approach (ISTEMA) which is a five-phased iterative cycle. The control group learned with traditional teaching method. Pre-test and post-test data were collected using 40 choice questions adopted from the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE). Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and dependent t-test was used for data analysis. The findings showed there was a significant main effect between high, medium and low ability students that learn using ISTEMA and those taught using traditional method. There was also no significant interaction effect between the instructional approach and students’ academic ability, which meant that students’ ability and instructional approach did not interact to enhance students’ achievement. The overall findings indicated that high, medium and low academic ability students benefitted, but with the low ability students having the highest mean gain. It was recommended among others that teachers should be encouraged to employ instructional approaches characterise by defining problem, generation of ideas, designing solution.