THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS STUDENTS IN EKET LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

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THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS STUDENTS IN EKET LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is organized under the following sub-heading of the study background of study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, research questions, research hypothesis, significance of the study, delimitation of terms.

1.1     Background of Study

          Education is the best legacy a nation can give to her citizens especially the youth, this is because the development of any nation or community depends largely on the quality of education of such nation.

          Biology is one of the course offered in school, it is a branch of science that focuses on the study of life and living organisms of all types. It is concerned with everything involving life form no matter how small or large including it’s structure, behaviour, origin, growth and reproduction. Biology provides us with the knowledge of how our body works and what we can do to help it run efficiently. Without a doubt, Biology is the cornerstone of life on this planet. Without dedicated Biologist from all branches life we enjoy would not exist.

          Considering the paramount importance biology constitute to human life, Biology was made as one of the core science subject offered in all senior secondary schools in West Africa. In fact, it is an essential consideration for successful outing in certificate examination like the Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examination (WAEC) as well as placement examinations like unified tertiary matriculation examination (UTME) conducted by Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to all students offering sciences. Based upon reports from those examination bodies, performances of Nigerians learners in this subject have not been encouraging making some curriculum and pedagogical pundits to beam their search lights on teaching methods, curriculum contents, instructional materials and other ancillary factors which they believed may influence the ability of the learners to learn more.

          Different teaching techniques have been adopted by pedagogues in order to shore up students’ performance in Biology, ranging from teacher-centered techniques to learner-centr method. As a teacher who is aspiring to be effective, it is necessary to find an alternative teaching methods that produces a statistical significant improvement in the student performance. Using the cooperative learning method where student work in small groups there is greater force for interaction and participation. Cooperation learning is instructional contexts in which peers work together on a learning task with the goal of all participants benefiting from the interaction. Studies have shown that cooperative learned students tend to have better and longer information retentions, higher grades, more highly developed critical thinking, problem solving skills, more positive attitudes towards learning Biology and greater motivation to learn Biology than the individualized learned students that work alone and are not expected to be interrupted by other students. In individualize learning, the learner is independent and they are separated from the achievements of the other students in the class. In this regard, students may be seated as far from each other as space permits.

          In all levels of education students in cooperative situations achieved greater academic, social and psychological benefits (Johnson & Johnson, 2005). Specifically, cooperative learning has been reported to improve students’ academic achievement (Beck & Chizik 2008; Sousa, 2006, Zani, Subramanian, Rashid and Ghani, 2009). According to James Amobe (2010), students cannot learn and achieve new skills on one self. Knowledge share among mates and others are basic of learning and achieving greatly mostly in science subject.

THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS STUDENTS IN EKET LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

THE EFFECTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS STUDENTS IN EKET LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA