Effect of Problem-solving Strategy on Students' Academic Performance in Genetic Concepts in Biology in Senior Secondary Schools in Kogistage, Nigeria

This study determined the effect of problem-solving strategies on students’ academic performance in genetic concepts in Biology. The study adopted the pretest-posttest control group, a quasi-experimental design. 80 SSII Biology students from two (2) co-educational schools in Idah Local Government Areas of Kogi State were randomly assigned to the treatment group. The instruments used were the Biology Student Performance Test (r=0.78) and Teachers’ Instructional guides on problem-solving strategy. Two Research Questions and hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive statistics of means and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and inferential statistics of Analysis of Covariance was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the study showed that the problem-solving strategy enhanced students’ academic performance in genetic concepts in biology rather than the lecture method. There is a significant difference between the academic performance mean score of the students exposed to genetic concepts using problem-solving strategy in biology and compared with their counterparts taught using the lecture method. There was no significant difference between the mean academic performance scores of male and female students exposed to genetic concepts using problem-solving strategy in biology and compared with their counterparts taught using lecture strategy. Based on the findings, biology teachers should adopt a problem-solving strategy to teach biology students, so that they can learn faster and better as it could foster confidence in the students and improve their academic performance.