The New Science Teaching and Learning Paradigm: Secondary Students’ Perception

Students’ perception influences their behaviour and disposition to innovation in teaching and learning science. This study investigates secondary school students’ perception of the new science teaching and learning paradigm in Oyo township. Two research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. A mixed methods type of research design (concurrent triangulation) was adopted, randomly sampled 250 secondary school students from eight public and private schools in Oyo town. Two self-constructed, validated research instruments; The New Science Teaching and Learning Paradigm Questionnaire (NSTLPQ, r=.79) and an unstructured interview were used for data collection. Frequency counts, percentages, t-test ANOVA, and scheffe posthoc test were used for data analysis. The results revealed that there are 176 (70.4%) male respondents, 168 (67.20%) 14-16 years age, 125 (50.0%) J.S. II, 187 (74.80%) Muslims, 125 (50.0%) private secondary school students in the distribution, the students perceived the new science teaching and learning paradigm as an effective tool in enhancing learning outcomes in science, there is significant students’ perception of the new science teaching and learning paradigm (x=71.20, t= 127.10, df=249, p<.05), the perception was significantly different based on the students’ gender(t =-3.94; df=248; p<.05), age(F(3,246)=12.12; p<0.05) and religion(F(2,247)=41.09; p<0.05) while class and school types made no difference. It was therefore recommended that Government and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) should intensify efforts towards establishing laboratories well furnished with adequate soft and hard wares in the schools; professional bodies training and retraining of the teachers to become instructional facilitators seasoned with skills in the new science teaching and learning paradigm.