INVESTIGATING THE RETENTION LEVELS OF DIFFERENT ABILITIES OF CHEMISTRY STUDENTS THROUGH CLASS-SIZE: EMERGING ISSUES IN SECONDARY EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

This study investigated the Retention Levels of different abilities of chemistry students through class-size. Three research questions and three null hypotheses gave focus to the study. The Research Design was quasi-experimental approach. The target population was all Senior Secondary School II chemistry students in Zaria Metropolis with a total of 2,007 chemistry students in thirteen Secondary Schools. A sample of one hundred and fifty (150) Senior Secondary School II chemistry students, drawn randomly from three secondary schools in Zaria, formed the sample for this study. The instrument used was Chemistry Achievement post-post Test (CAPPT) which consisted of thirty multiple choice items, designed to find out the extent the students retained the taught Chemistry concepts. The test items reflected the four (4) cognitive levels based on Bloom’s (1986) Taxonomy for the cognitive domain. The reliability coefficient of 0.81 was obtained using Cronbach’s alpha reliability test. The data was subjected to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test the hypotheses at P≤0.05 significance level. The findings showed that there was significant difference between the mean scores of the high ability (HA) group from the Post-Posttest and the results revealed that the HA subjects in small class-size (E1) retained the taught concepts. The findings from the average ability (AA) subjects in the three class size groupings indicated significant difference. Thirdly, significant difference was recorded in the retention level of the low ability (LA) subjects in the three class-size groupings. Recommendations include continuous support for new researches on class-size and ability grouping of students as information obtained could substantially improve the academic achievement and retention levels of different ability groups of chemistry students.