Abstract:
This study was designed to investigate the effect of two modes of concept mapping on students’ achievement in biology. It was guided by five research questions and six hypotheses. The study adopted a quasi experimental design, specifically, the non-equivalent control group design. The population for the study comprised all the SSII students in six co-educational secondary schools in Apa Education zone of Benue State. The sample for the study comprised six secondary schools from seventeen co-educational schools in the area. Out of these schools, two schools form collaborative group, two schools were also assigned to individualistic groups, while the remaining two schools form the control groups respectively. In each of the six schools, one arm/stream was assigned a treatment condition. One instrument was used for data collection namely Biology Achievement Test (BAT) which was developed by the researcher. The validity and reliability of the instrument was established. For the validity of BAT, the researcher used face and content validation using table of specification. The reliability of the instrument was established using Kudder – Richardson formula 20 (K – R20) for BAT. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer research questions, while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results from the study revealed that students exposed to collaborative and individualistic concept mapping techniques achieved more in the biology content than the students who were exposed to conventional lecture method. It also showed that male students in the collaborative group achieved more than the female students. Finally, the interaction effect of method of teaching and gender on students mean achievement in biology was not statistically significant. The study recommended that biology teachers should be trained adequately in the use of the concept mapping technique and should therefore incorporate it as one of the techniques used in teaching biology.
