Abstract:

The study investigated the effect of numbered heads together cooperative instructional strategy (NHT) on secondary school students’ interest in biology in Awka Education Zone. Two research questions and three null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The study is quasi-experimental research, adopting specifically the pretest posttest non-randomized control group of 2x2 factorial research design. 4755 senior secondary year two (SS2) students constituted the population. Multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to compose the sample size of 64 (21 males and 43 females) SS2 students. The sampled students who were in two intact classes were randomly assigned to experimental (23 girls and 10 boys) and control (20 girls and 11 boys) groups using a flip of a coin. A 20-item Biology students interest scale (BSIS), with five response options, developed by the researchers was used for data collection. The biology students interest scale was validated by three experts and with reliability index of 0.77 established using Cronbach alpha. Students in the experimental group was taught selected concepts in biology using NHT while those in the control group was taught the same concepts using Conventional Lecture Method (CLM). Mean and Standard deviation were used in answering the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. The findings of the study revealed that NHT is more effective in fostering students’ interest in biology than CLM. Gender had no significant influence on students’ interest in biology. Also, there was no interaction effect of teaching methods and gender on students’ interest in biology. The study therefore concluded that NHT is a gender friendly approach that fosters students’ interest in biology as it involves the group working together and every member of the team taking accountability of the group. Based on the findings, recommendations were made among which include that NHT should be adopted by biology teachers in schools to foster students’ interest in biology.

Keywords: