Effect of Laboratory Strategy on Academic Performance and Interest in Ecology Concept among Secondary School Students in Mani Zone, Katsina State, Nigeria

The study investigated the effect of laboratory strategy on academic performance and interest among secondary schools Biology Students in Mani Zonal Education Quality Assurance katsina state. Quasi-experimental research design was employed. Four objectives, four research question were formulated and four hypotheses in null form were formulated to guide the study. A population of four thousand and seven (4,007) senior secondary students (SSII) was used for the study. 72 students were randomly selected as the sample size of the study, EPT and EIQ are the instruments for data collection both instruments were pilot tested and reliability co-efficient of 0.68 and 0.86 were obtained, Two groups were used, one experimental and one control group. The experimental group was taught using laboratory strategy while the control group was taught using conventional lecture method. All the groups received treatment for a period of six (6) weeks. At the commencement and completion of the instruction a pre-test, and post-test of (EPT) were administered respectively to collect the data on students’ performance and also (EIQ) were also administered to collect data of interest of the students mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research question and independent sample t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the pretest indicated that there is no significant difference between the performance scores of the students in the control group and the experimental group while the result of the post-test indicated that there exists a significant difference between the performance scores of students in the experimental and control group. Thus, laboratory strategy enhances students’ performance and interest in ecology. The conclusion drawn from the findings of this study was that laboratory strategy is more effective which could be used in the teaching and learning of ecology and other aspects of biology in senior secondary schools. It recommended that further research should be conducted in various content areas of biology and at different levels of learning.