CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The art of teaching and learning are daily activities that human beings are subjected for survival in the environment. For an individual to move along with the society, one should learn and be acquainted with the existing changes in the society. But it should be understood that, no learning can take place without proper teaching. This is where the marriage of teaching and learning contracts itself.
The major responsibility of the school which is imparting knowledge rests with teachers. A teacher should be more knowledgeable than his students in the subject of his specialization. In whatever is taught to the students, there is always a feedback to the teacher. This makes the class lively and enjoyable.
This exercise serves as a motivation and helps in the development of the three domains of learning; the cognitive, the effective and the psychomotive (Utah, 2006).
Despite innovations in the teaching/learning system, the teacher cannot be brushed aside in the process of education. According to Udoh (2006) the teacher is at the centre of the educative process as he occupies a position that is pivotal in ensuring a smooth running of the system. It is upon her professional competence, commitment and sense of duty that what the school achieves is possible.
According to Ekanem (2006) as quoted from Van Dalen and Brittel, teaching is the “guidance of pupils through planned activities so that they may acquire the richest learning possible from their experiences’. This implies that no teacher can give education to a child, that is to say that a child does not learn merely because he/she has been exposed to the teacher’s knowledge, to the content of textbook, rather learning is an active process which goes on within the child by guiding his/her learning experiences through planned activities. As a matter of fact, the child starts to learn when they become actively involved in the learning situation. Actually, the teacher’s role is to guide. This the teacher does by arousing the students’ interest to participate fully by establishing attainable goals, by questions. Where a teacher dominates classroom activities, he is not helping the learners to learn, in short, he is not teaching. Thus, the teacher must know how to select the contents and method to use.
Ekanem (2003) noted that if a teacher just teaches facts to the child, then he is taking a fractionated approach to teaching whereby only the cognitive talents will be developed, but a good teaching will involve a multi-talent approach which involves teaching the fact (cognitive), having the learner have love, interest and affection for what is taught (affective) and finally enabling the learner to transfer what has been learnt into practical terms (psychomotor). A multi-talent approach to teaching enables the learner develop self-concept. To develop self-concept, the instruction must be student-centred, investigative and discovery-oriented.
Biology is one of the core courses in the secondary level of education in Nigeria today. Biology as a subject helps students to be actively involved in the learning process, develop the motivation and ability to work and think in an independent fashion; recall information and experiences; communicate selectively and effectively and relate to other areas and to live successfully in his society (Archibong, 2008).
Effective and efficient instruction leads to effective and efficient learning, which depends on a greater extent on an effective classrooms communication between the teacher and learners. Effective instruction which produces effective learning to a large extent depends on the effective interaction and an effective sharing of meaning between the teacher and the learners.
Ekanem (2003) viewed that a good instructional technique should have the following characteristics. It must proceed from simple to complex, it must be related to real life so that students can see that their work is real achievement; it should be related to the subject matter in question; it should allow for learners individual differences; it should appeal to two or more senses in order to aid retention and transfer of learning, it should make learning more effective and prevent boredom, it should be structured around learners experience and help them to understand the subject matter.
Experience and research have shown that the success of any educational programme depends on teachers who teach it. It is a well known fact that before a teacher could function effectively he must among other attributes posses a fairly sound academic and professional knowledge of science as a discipline.
It has been observed that effective teaching of any subject depends on a greater extent on the teacher’s understanding of the nature of the subject, but the present method used in teaching Biology in secondary schools do not provide meaningful understanding of concepts to the learners. It results in poor academic performance of students in examinations, and backwardness in scientific and technological advancement. This is because many of the teachers do not stay long in the service after obtaining their Nigeria Certificate in Education. Some proceed almost immediately to obtaining higher degrees, some leave teaching for a more lucrative profession that offer them better conditions of service.
To counter the effect of poor teaching strategies on students’ performance especially in science, several investigative teaching strategies aimed at adequately involving the learners in the teaching-learning process through meaningful hands-on, minds and heart-on activities have been developed, these include team teaching, Guided-discovery, Guided inquiry, student-centred approach (Ibe and Nwosu, 2003).
In inquiry approach, the teacher provides the problem for investigation as well as the necessary materials. The teacher posses guided questions for students to interact. Students are expected to solve the problem arising as directed by the teacher.
Since Biology is an organized body of knowledge and a process of finding out knowledge, it therefore demands that it should be taught through guided inquiry method which implies that teacher provides students with only the questions and students design the procedure.
Therefore, Biology learning is the learning of science in which the learner is at the centre of activity. The learner is provided with the learning materials, guided questions on a topic under discussion. The learner then freely interacts with the materials and facilitator. In this case, the knowledge gained by the learner is concretized and remain permanently with the learners.
This study seeks therefore to find out the effect of guided inquiry method and students’ academic performance in Biology in secondary school level.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The schooling process in every society today is a pubic matter. What happens within the educational system are closely monitored by the pubic (Eddie, 2003).
The growing numbers of failures in Biology in public examinations in recent time among our secondary school students have become a cause of concern to all and sundry. Again, the loss of interest by students in Biology lesson has been a problem under investigation and has raised doubts on the effect of the teaching method utilized by teachers in school.
There is need to carry out study using an innovative teaching strategy of guided inquiry whereby students will be helped to become active learners rather than passive learners.
The researcher therefore considers it necessary to explore students’ performance in Biology using guided inquiry method of teaching.
