Effect of Team-Pair-Solo Instructional Strategy on Biology Students’ Achievement and Retention in Transport System in Ado Local Government Area of Ekiti State

Abstract

 The study assessed the effect of Team-pair-solo Instructional Strategy (TIS) on students’ achievement and retention in the transport system in Ado Local Government Area of Ekiti State. It also assessed the effect of the strategy on students’ achievement in relation to gender. Three research questions and hypotheses guided the study. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest on-equivalent control group design was used for the study. The population of the study consisted of 210 S.S.II Biology students in the 6 co-educational secondary schools in Ado Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The study sample consisted of 54 Biology students in their intact classes from two randomly selected secondary schools in the study area, consisting of 11 male and 17 female students. The classes were randomly assigned to one experimental and one control group in each of the two schools. The experimental group was taught using TIS while the control group was taught using the Conventional Teaching Method CTM). The instrument for data collection was the Biology Achievement Test on Transport System (BATTS). The same instrument but in a rearranged version was also used to collect data on retention. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while inferential statistics of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and T-test were used to test the formulated hypotheses one, two and three respectively, at 0.05 alpha level. Findings of the study revealed that TIS and CTM had significant effect on Biology students’ achievement in transport system F_{(3, 107)} = 33.066, p = .000. The results also showed that those exposed to TIS had greater mean posttest achievement score (mean =61.14) than those exposed to CTM  (Mean =46.95). On students’ retention, TSIS and CTM were found to have a significant difference (F_{(1, 51)} = 12.792), p = .001. The results showed that those exposed to TSIS had a higher retention score (Mean =51.36) (retained more knowledge of the concept taught) than those exposed to CTM (Mean =37.04). Based on the findings, the study recommends, among others, that since TIS had a significant effect on students’ achievement and retention, it should be recommended for all Biology teachers at the secondary school level as an instructional strategy to be used in teaching their lessons.