An assessment of the impact of inclusive education on learning of senior secondary school biology students in Niger State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study assessed the impact of inclusive education on learning of biology students in Niger state, Nigeria. The sample of the study comprised of 300 students (148 boys and 152 girls) selected from six senior secondary schools in Niger North, Niger East and Niger South senatorial districts of the state. The designs adopted for this research were descriptive and Ex post facto designs. Questionnaires were administered to students and data was collated to answer research questions and test hypotheses. A 30 items Assessment of Inclusive Education Questionnaire (AIEQ) was validated by experts and a reliability coefficient of 0.75 was obtained using Cronbach's alpha reliability formula. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequency count and percentage methods. The three null hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistic after collating the second term biology examination scores of the students from the schools examinations offices. The findings revealed that there was an improvement with positive interaction and participation of students in learning Biology in an inclusive biology class. There was however, a negative response on the provision of special facilities for the learning of students with special needs. Similarly, there was no statistically significant difference in the achievement of normal students and those with special needs. There was no statistically significant difference in the achievement of male and female normal students and those with special needs. Based on these findings, it was recommended that regular and special needs students should be brought together and be educated in an inclusive classrooms and be assisted with technology gadgets such as calculators, reading strips, highlighter tapes, Word prediction software and Laptops to aid their learning.