Effects of Number-Head Together Strategy on Academic Achievement and Interest of Secondary School Biology Students in Bichi Education Zone, Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

Available records from the West African Examination Council's Chief Examiners' Report (WAEC, 2016 – 2019) and findings of many studies have revealed that Biology students in secondary schools of Bichi Education Zone performed inadequately in the Nervous system concept. Several such studies attributed these inadequacies to improper teaching methods employed by teachers. Consequently, therefore, this study investigated the effects of the Number-Head Together (NHT) strategy on academic achievement and interest in Biology among secondary school students in Bichi Education Zone, Kano-Nigeria. The study adopted a pre-test, post-test nonequivalent, quasi-experimental design. The population of the study consisted of 4349 SS II Biology students (3352 males and 997 females) while the sample of the study consisted of 169 subjects from four intact classes drawn through a simple random sampling technique. The nervous System Achievement Test (NSAT) with a reliability index of 0.708 and the Student's Interest Toward Biology Questionnaire (SIBQ) with a reliability index of 0.811 was used to measure students' academic achievement and interest towards Biology respectively. The result of the study revealed that there was a significant difference in the mean academic achievement and interest of Biology students in the two groups in favour of the experimental group. Additionally, it was shown that the mean achievement and interest scores of the biology students in the two groups did not significantly differ based on gender. To improve academic achievement and students' interest in biology, it was suggested that the NHT teaching strategy be incorporated into the secondary school curriculum.