Effects of Cooperative Instructional Strategy and Concept Mapping-Guided Discovery Integrated Instructional Approach on Basic Science Students' Attitude, Achievement and Retention

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of Cooperative instructional strategy and Concept Mapping-Guided Discovery integrated instructional approach attitude, achievement and retention of Basic Science students. Simple random sampling procedure was employed to select 103 Primary six Pupils from three public primary schools in North-East Senatorial District, Benue State, Nigeria. Quasi experimental design was employed for the study. Three research questions guided the study and three research hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Two instruments were used for data collection namely; Basic Science Attitude Questionnaire (BSAQ) and Basic Science Achievement Test (BAT). The reliability of BSAQ was determined using Cronbach Alpha and the coefficient obtained was 0.80 while split half was used to determine the reliability of BAT and the reliability coefficient was found to be 0.81 implying that the instruments were reliable enough for the study. Mean Gain scores were used to answer the research questions while the hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). Scheffe's post- hoc test was used to determine the magnitude of the differences. The findings of the study revealed that significant differences were found in the interest and retention of students taught using Cooperative instructional strategy and Concept Mapping-Guided Discovery integrated instructional approach and the Conventional Demonstration Method.