PREDICT-OBSERVE-EXPLAIN, PEER-TEACHING INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES AND STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN BASIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MKPAT ENIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) and Peer-Teaching instructional strategies on students’ academic performance in Basic Science and Technology in Mkpat Enin Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. Three research questions and corresponding null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. A quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study. The population of this study comprised all the 3,238 JSS2 students in Mkpat Enin Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. The sample of this study consisted of 95 JSS2 students drawn from two public secondary schools in the study area. Simple random sampling technique was used for this selection. A researcher developed instrument entitled Basic Science Performance Test (BSPT) was used for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face and content validity by a Basic Science teacher in a secondary school and two experts in test and measurement in the Department of Science Education, Akwa Ibom State University. A reliability test was conducted on the instrument using 20 students who were not part of the sample for the study. A reliability coefficient of 0.82 was obtained for the instrument using Kuder Richardson-20 (KR-20) reliability estimate. Mean and standard deviation were used for answering the research questions while independent t-test was used for testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that students taught using POE instructional strategy performed significantly better than those taught using peerteaching instructional strategy. The result revealed no gender difference in students’ academic performance when taught using POE and peer-teaching instructional strategies. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among other things, that Basic Science and Technology teachers should be encouraged to incorporate Predict-Observe-Explain and Peer-Teaching learning strategy as this will help students to become active participants in the learning process thereby enhancing their performance in the subject without gender biases.