Developing creative-hands among varied cognitive style upper-basic 3 students in basic science using creative exploration in Gboko.

Development of creative-hands among varied cognitive style upper-basic III students in basic science using creative exploration in Gboko was studied using quasi-experimental research design (pre-test post-test nonequivalent control group). Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. A sample size of 70 (39 males and 31 females) students was drawn out of a population of 1 823 (995 males and 828 female) upper-basic III science students using a multi-stage sampling from 24 government grant-aided schools was used for the study. The Creative Hand Design Test (CHDT) which was used for data collection was validated by five experts. It was trial-tested by a test retest; test scores obtained were computed by Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) which yielded a reliability value of 0.997. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 α-level. The results show a significant difference in the students’ creative-hands development when taught Basic Science using creative exploration and the students taught using expository teaching with mean gain of 16.05 for CE, F (1,67) = 38.437; ρ = 0.000 < 0.05. The result also shows no significant difference in the students’ creative-hands development based on different cognitive styles as students were taught using creative exploration F (1, 31) = 0.066; ρ = 0.936 > 0.05. The study recommends, among others, that creative exploration be used for teaching science at basic schools.