IMPACT OF FIELD TRIP INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ON STUDENT'S ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN ECOLOGY CONCEPT IN ZARIA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

This study examined the impact of Fieldtrip Instructional Strategy on students’ academic performance in ecology concepts among senior secondary school biology students in Zaria Education Zone, Kaduna State. The study employed a quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent. Non-randomised pretest-posttest groups, comprising both experimental and control groups. A sample of 164 students was drawn from two randomly selected co-educational public secondary schools out of an eligible population of 7,097biology students. The experimental group was instructed using the fieldtrip strategy, whereas the control group was taught using the conventional lecture method over a six-week intervention period. Data were collected using the validated Ecology Performance Test (EPT; KR-20 reliability = 0.79). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent samples t-test and ANOVA) at α ≤ 0.05. The results revealed statistically significant improvement in academic performance for the experimental group (M= 31.22, SD = 1.66) compared to the control group (M=20.70, SD = 4.00), with t (162) = 25.11 and p = 0.000 leading to the rejection of the null hypothesis. Gender-based performance between male (M = 33.45) and female (M = 32.00) students (p=0.83). The study concludes that Fieldtrip strategy is an effective and gender inclusive instructional approach that significantly enhances learning performance of biology students in the study of ecology concepts. These results concluded that Fieldtrip is a beneficial instructional strategy for improving students’ learning outcomes in biology. The study recommends that the Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN) should organize workshops to train teachers on the effective implementation of Fieldtrip strategy. Additionally, senior secondary school biology teachers are encouraged to adopt Fieldtrip strategy in teaching Biology among others to enhance students' academic performance in biology.