CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Biology is a branch of natural science that deals with the study of living organisms, their structures, functions, evolution, distribution and interrelationships. Biology occupies a unique position in the secondary school education curriculum because of its importance as science of life. In Nigeria, the secondary school Biology curriculum is designed to continue students’ investigation into natural phenomena, deepen students’ understanding and interest in biological sciences and to encourage students’ ability to apply scientific knowledge to everyday life. Biology is one of the science subjects taught at the senior secondary school levels in all Nigerian secondary schools today which attracts the greatest patronage of both science-oriented and arts-based students (Nwachukwu and Nwosu, 2007), Nwagbo (2008) pointed out that the structure of the Nigerian secondary school requires a student to do one science subject, and Biology is the science subject most of the science students opt for on the false premise that it is the easiest of the sciences. For this reason, Biology has a very high enrolment of students in the external examination (West African Examination Council, 2011). Biology as a school subject is expected to help students understand and deal with their natural environment and the organisms living within it. Biology also deals with the interactions between living and non-living components of the environment (Nwagbo, 2008). A sound knowledge of Biology is pre-requisite for entrance into such professions like Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Biochemistry, Genetics and Agriculture that are of great economic importance to the nation.

Despite the importance of biology as a school subject, available statistics from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC, 2009-2013) revealed that candidates achieve poorly in the examination. For instance, an average of 82.4% of the candidates that sat for Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (S.S.C.E) in Biology in 2009 failed to obtain grades at credit level and above, which could qualify them for university admission in Biology and other science-related disciplines (West African Examinations Council Chief Examiner’s Report, 2009). An analysis of the result of the performance of candidates in Biology at WAEC SSCE (2009-2013) as seen in (Appendix A), page 150 showed that the majority of the candidates scored below credit level or failed to obtain the grades A1-C6. By implication, most students cannot gain admission into tertiary institutions to study Biology or its related disciplines. This leaves one in doubt about the effectiveness of instructional approaches employed by the Biology teachers for the teaching and learning of Biology.

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Chief Examiners’ Report for Biology II in Nov/Dec, 2013 showed that the candidates’ performance was slightly poorer than that of the previous years with a mean score of 17 and a standard deviation of 8.77. The observed weaknesses include shallow knowledge of the subject matter and poor performance in questions on cell and its environment, genetics, ecology and feeding relationships among others.

Researchers have shown that Biology teachers do not always employ effective instructional approaches in teaching the subject (Nwagbo, 2001 and Nwosu, 2007). This has led to situations where students cannot apply the knowledge of Biology in real life situations. Agama (2009) posited that in most secondary schools, teaching methods are mainly based on inappropriate instructional approach, which requires teachers to give explanation or demonstration while students usually focus on textbook reading, note taking and memorization of facts. Evidence has shown from WAEC Chief Examiners’ Report that there is high rate of failure in Biology, which could be traceable to the quality of teaching (More, 2003). To buttress this, Nwagbo (2008) had earlier asserted that the quality of any educational programme in any country is the function of those who teach it. Nwagbo opined that even a good curriculum and a well stocked laboratory would still not give the desired result in the hands of incompetent Science, Technology and Mathematics (STM) teachers.

Nwokelu and Afe as cited by Nwakonobi, (2008), revealed that complaints abound from students, teachers, parents, West African Examination Council (WAEC), and even Ministry of Education officials about the inability of some students to perform creditably in some subjects like Biology, Chemistry and Physics, to name a few. These poor academic achievements could be as a result of ineffective teaching methods adopted by the teachers.

Some researchers have indicated that underachievement in science subjects such as Biology is linked to inappropriate methods of teaching in senior secondary schools (Okoye & Okeke, 2007; Nwagbo, 2009). For instance, classroom observations in many Nigerian secondary schools during teacher supervisions showed that the majority of the teachers do not apply appropriate science strategies as identified and recommended to be effective for science instruction (Norom, 2009). Biology classroom activities are still dominated by teacher-centered instruction which has been found to be ineffective in promoting Biology learning at senior secondary school level (Uzoechi, 2008). Nwagbo (2006) observed that such teacher-centered approach, which places the teacher as the sole possessor of knowledge and the students as passive recipients of knowledge, may not enhance achievement or promote positive attitude to Biology in particular and science in general.

Science learning is expected to produce individuals that are capable of solving their problems as well as those of the society. Such individuals are expected to be autonomous (that is independent; not relying on anybody before explaining the materials learnt when the need arises), confident and self reliant. Obiekwe (2008) reported that all is not well with science instruction in Nigerian secondary schools, and noted that science teaching lays extreme emphasis on content and the use of “chalk and talk” method neglecting the activity-oriented method which enhances teaching and learning. This negligence and ‘shy away’ attitude from activity method of teaching has led to abstraction which makes the students less active and more prone to rote memorization (Obiekwe, 2008).

The ineffective teaching strategies used in Biology teaching have been the most important factor in underachievement (Okoye and Okeke, 2007). Some of the other factors include: incompetent mode of teachers’ delivery, inadequate use of instructional materials, students’ attitude, ill-equipped Biology laboratories and vast nature of Biology curriculum (Umeh, 2008). Ukaegbu (2006) proffered reasons for the poor performance to include ineffective teaching strategy, careless drawing and labeling, incompetence and laziness on the part of teachers. This situation has created the need for more effective teaching strategies. It then becomes necessary to explore the efficacy of other alternative strategies of redressing this situation. Research findings have indicated that the use of innovative teaching strategies such as co-operative learning, games and simulation and peer teaching could enhance interest and achievement in science. This study therefore investigated the effect of two instructional scaffolding strategies (cueing questions and concept mapping) on students’ achievement and interest in Biology. The effects of these two instructional scaffolding strategies on the achievement and interest of male and female students were also investigated.

Scaffolding is a learning process designed to promote a deeper level of learning. Scaffolding is the support given during the learning process which is tailored to the needs of the students with the intention of helping the student achieves his/her learning goals. Scaffolding is a teaching technique whereby the teacher models the desired learning strategy/ task, then gradually shifts responsibility to the students. In literal terms, scaffolding refers to poles and wooden boards that are joined together to make a structure for workers to stand on when they are working (Vygotsky, 1978). It is used when building high structures such as storey building. Scaffolds are pillars for support to both the building and the builder. Scaffolding as an educational concept is the assistance (parameters, rules, or suggestions) a teacher gives to the students during the instructional process to achieve learning. Vygotsky added that scaffolding instruction is the “role of teachers and others in supporting the learners’ development and providing support structures to get to the next stage or level”. As a learner gains control of these new learning, the teacher withdraws the support gradually as the learner becomes increasingly able to complete the task alone. The teacher then plans and provides further support on new learning. In using scaffolding, the teacher’s job is to help bridge the gap between what a student already knows and what he will learn next. A ‘scaffold’ ensures that children are not left to their own devices to understand something. The support is removed when the student is ready, like the scaffolding that support workers who have been constructing or repairing a building. The scaffolds provide the workers with both a place to work and the means to reach work areas that they could not access on their own which is removed when construction is complete (Olota, 2015)

In instructional scaffolding, the instructor initially provides extensive instructional support, or scaffolding to continually assist the students in building their understanding of new content and process. Once the students internalize the content and/ or process, they assume full responsibility for controlling the progress of a given task. The temporary scaffolding provided by the instructor is removed to reveal the impressive permanent learning that has taken place (Hartman, 2002).

Instructional scaffolding involves three major levels.The content, task and material scaffolding. At the content level, the teacher breaks instructional plans to lead the students from what they already know to a deep understanding of what they do not know (Turn, Turnbull, shank and Leal, 1999). Scaffolding plans must be written carefully, such that each new skill or bit of information that the students learn serves as a logical next step based upon what they already know or are able to do. The instructor must prepare both to continuously assess students’ learning and to connect new information to the students’ prior knowledge.

The second level of instructional scaffolding is task scaffolding; the instructor provides support to the learners at every step of the learning process (Turnbull etal, 1999). At the beginning of the process, the instructor models the task in its entirety. Having observed their instructor’s model, the students begin guided practice by performing parts of the task independently. The instructor assists the learners with their early practice and continuously assesses their learning. As the students gain experience with and understanding of new information or task, the instructor increases the complexity of guided practice activities and gradually reduces his or her support. By the end of a well-executed scaffolding plan, the students perform the entire task with little or no support from their instructor (Turnbull etal, 1999).

 The third level is material scaffolding which involves the use of manipulatives, verbal or physical prompts and cues to help the learner perform a task or use a strategy. This may take the form of cue or guided examples that list the steps necessary to preform a task. They can use this example to reduce confusion and frustration. The cues and prompt must be phased out over time as learners master the steps of the task or strategy (Piper, 2005). There are actually five different instructional scaffolding techniques identified in research study by Hogan and Pressley, (1999) and they include: Modeling of desired behaviours, advanced organizer worked examples, offering explanations, inviting students to contribute cues, inviting student participation, verifying and clarifying student understandings. These techniques may either be integrated or used individually depending on the material being taught. The instructor’s goal in employing scaffolding techniques is offering just enough assistance to guide the learners toward independence and self-regulation.

Scaffolding techniques are used in conjunction with scaffolding instructional materials. These materials fit into one of the following categories: reception scaffolds, transformation scaffolds or production scaffolds (Hartman, 2002). Reception scaffolds help learners to effectively gather information from available sources. They keep the learners attention focused on important information, and they prompt the learner to organize and record what they see. For example, a web-like graphic organizer called concept map prompts the students with focus questions, and provides them with a framework for organizing their answers. Whereas reception scaffolds help the student to identify structure already present in a given source, transformation scaffolds help the learner to impose structure on information, for example, a student who is studying the mechanism of inhalation or exhalation might be asked to represent this on a chart. The transformation scaffold is the blank chart which prompts the learner to categorize information logically. Finally, production scaffolds are tools that prompt the student to convey what they have learned in an effective way. For example, an instructor might prepare an outline or template to help her students organize their book. The three different kinds, of scaffold may either be integrated or used individually to support students’ learning. With the right techniques and materials, an instructor can provide the temporary support that students need to grow intellectually.

 In education, scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. Teachers provide successive levels of temporary support that help students reach higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition that they would not be able to achieve without assistance. Like physical scaffolding, the supportive strategies are incrementally removed when they are no longer needed, and the teacher gradually shifts more responsibility over the learning process to the student. Scaffolding can be used at any level of education and in any discipline including Biology, but it requires detailed planning on the part of the teacher. In using scaffolds, the teacher helps in breaking down complex tasks into manageable bits, motivates learners, brings clear direction and reduces students’ confusion. The teacher also clarifies expectation and incorporates assessment and feedback, and students understand why they are doing the work and why it is important. It points students to worthy sources to reduce frustration and time. In educational setting, there are many instructional strategies that can be used to break down complex tasks into manageable bits that will lead to acquisition of new knowledge. Such strategies enable students to breakdown topics or concepts into smaller units and help students acquire skills needed to link inter-relationship among concepts (Mang, 2003). Such strategies could include the use of cueing questions and concept mapping.

 Concept mapping originates from concept maps. Rao (2015) refers to concept maps as diagrammatic representations which show meaningful relationships between concepts in the form of propositions which are linked together by words, circles, and cross links. A concept map is a diagram showing relationships between concepts. A concept map presents the relationship among a set of connected concepts and ideas. Concept maps are identified as two-dimensional, hierarchical, node-linked diagrams that depict verbal, conceptual or declarative knowledge in succinct, visual or graphical forms (Rao, 2015).

In concept maps ideas are arranged hierarchically with the superordinate concepts at the top of the map, and subordinate at the bottom which are less inclusive than the higher ones (Ejimonye, 2015). Concepts are connected with labelled arrows, in a downward branching hierarchical structure. The relationship between concepts is articulated in linking phrases, e.g “give rise to”, ‘helps’, “results in”, “is required by” or “contributes to” (Novak and Canas, 2008). A concept map is a special form of a web diagram for exploring knowledge, gathering and sharing information (Olaniran, 2004). Concept mapping is the strategy employed to develop a concept map. It is an instructional strategy that presents key concepts as knowledge maps that act as scaffold to facilitate learning. It was developed in 1972 by Novak and his associates at the Cornell University. The primary objective of novak’s research effort was to develop a model for overcoming the problem of students’ rote learning of concepts in science (Novak and Canas, 2008).

Concept mapping seems to be a promising strategy for meaningful learning since it enables the learner to consciously connect new knowledge with relevant concepts already known. Several studies such as Pankratius, Udeani, Markor and Loaning as cited by Ahiakwo (2001) have reported that concept mapping could be a viable strategy that can help teachers to be more effective, foster curriculum development and promote students’ hands-on activity. Use of concept mapping in facilitating hand-on-task learning is explained by the constructivist theory (Vygotsky, 1978), which states that hand-on-task learning enhances experiential learning. In concept mapping new knowledge is integrated into existing structures in order to enhance understanding (Stoica, Moranu & Miron, 2011). It makes learning process explicit and requires the learner to pay attention to the relationship between concepts. It helps in presenting diagrammatically and in hierarchical order the relationships or inter-relationship of a new concept/idea with existing or already known concept/idea (Rao, 2015). According to Ejimonye (2015) hierarchical presentation of ideas usually from simple to complex could enhance students’ achievement and interest in a subject and Biology is not an exception.

Concept mapping is an instructional scaffold for it provides support through diagrammatical representation and orderly presentation of the relationship between concepts or components of a concept using links, lines, and nodes for meaningful learning. Concept maps are helpful as a tool to gauge students’ understanding because they make the knowledge construction process visible (Sungur, Tekkaya and Gebban, 2001). Concept mapping enable learners to focus on fine details, experiencing a structured step-by-step approach, representing their knowledge structures graphically and visualizing programming concepts and procedures as a network of interrelated ideas (Association for Computing Machinery, 2015). Students through the links shown by the concept map on a concept could easily understand the concept without much explanation by the teacher. When the students through the concept map understand the links among components of a concept or the relationship between one concept and another, they can reason beyond the framework when the concept map is removed. Thus, concept map as instructional scaffold could enhance students’ understanding of concepts towards a better academic achievement.

Concept mapping as instructional scaffold provides learning environment that appeals to students’ sights (visuals) and teachers’ explanation of the concept maps appeals to the students’ hearing, just like cueing questions that appeal to students’ sight and hearing to promote learning. Cueing from the researchers point of view is giving somebody a hint that will enable him grasp/ understand the idea the teacher is trying to convey or cueing is a hint that offers additional useful information to the students in a way that pushes the student to follow the correct thinking process. Cueing is giving somebody a signal so that the person is reminded of something that aids correct responses. Mayer (2009) defined cueing as the addition of cues to the verbal or visual content to direct the learners’ attention to the essential elements of the presentation. Cueing questions are questions posed as a hint to direct the learners’ attention to what they are expected to learn or series of questions that will help the teacher to elucidate or throw light in the subject matter with a view of assisting the students to have a better understanding. Each question takes you a step further towards the realization of stated objectives.

A teacher's overall instructional effectiveness depends heavily on how that teacher uses instructional cues. A cue consists of a word, phrase, or sentence that describes a particular aspect of a concept or skill. While cues most often focus on motor skill development in physical education, they may also target fitness, strategy, character

development, or any other aspect of lessons teachers deem appropriate. A growing body of research suggests that cues enhance learning by improving student attention, comprehension, and retention. Cues enhance the attention or focus of learners by restricting what they need to think about. Since learner's capacity for attention is limited, it is important to enhance this capacity with relevant, rather than irrelevant (or perhaps, less relevant) stimuli. Consequently, cues play an important role in directing students’ attention towards the most critical information, and away from less critical information. As Buchanan and Briggs (1998) posited that while having more than one cue for the same movement is useful, the teacher should be careful not to confuse students by bombarding them with endless variety of hints.

Verbal cueing is adding non-content cues to the verbal information such as underlining, bold-face or headings, etc. Non-content cues are signs/signals, or symbols that can help in better understanding of main ideas of a concept. Visual cueing is adding non-content cues to the visual representations (Lin and Atkinson, 2011) such as, increasing the luminance of specific objects, adding arrows, changing the colour among others. In educational context cueing is providing guides to students on the most effective and efficient way to process the material (Mautone and Mayer, 2011). Cues do not add new information to the content or change the content of the instructional material (De-Koning, Tabbers, Rikers and Paas, 2009). Cueing guides the learner’s cognitive processing and helps the learner to select the relevant information, organize the information logically and integrate the information with prior knowledge by providing responses (Mautone and Mayer, 2011). De-Koning, Tabbers, Rikers and Paas (2009) propose three functions of cueing: guiding learner’s attention to facilitate the selection and extraction of essential information, emphasizing the major topics of instruction and their organization and making the relations between elements more salient to foster their integration.

Cues and questions are strategies that help students to use teachers’ hint and their prior knowledge to enhance their learning about new content. Cue is a hint that offers additional useful information to the student in a way that pushes the students to follow the correct thinking process. A hint, by contrast, could offer any information that will help students provide the correct answer to a question. A question is any sentence which has an interrogative form or function (Cotton, 1988). The author opines that in classroom settings, teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to the students the content elements to be learned and directions for what they are to do and how they are to do it. The benefits of cueing questions include to develop interest and motivate students to become actively involved in lessons; to evaluate students’ preparation and check on homework or classwork completion; to develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes; to review and summarize previous lessons; to nurture insights by exposing new relationships; to assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives; to stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own.

A teacher's questions impact on students’ achievement, retention and participation. They fulfil numerous instructional purposes including: assessing understanding, reviewing and summarizing, developing critical and creative thinking skills and inspiring interest and motivation. Research has shown that an absence of questioning during teaching results in lower achievement levels than instructions that feature questioning (Cotton, 1989). Questions should focus on the important content to be learned in order to maximize understanding and not distract from it (Marzano, Pickering and Pollock 2001). Teachers need to be aware of the level of questions they ask according to the revised version of Bloom's Taxonomy Nwagbo (2008). Teachers also need to cue their questions in order to strengthen students’ critical thinking especially for questions they have little or no understanding.

Ideas may be expressed creatively through several types of cues, including, but not limited to acronyms, alliteration, rhymes, slogans and similes or word pictures. Cue may be instrumental in helping learners connect new learning to old learning. When learners get stuck, teachers may respond so that they can improve understanding, correct an error, or address a misconception. The way a teacher responds can leave the students feeling either successful or helpless. In this phase of the teaching and learning process the teacher and students share responsibilities between them. Teachers, however, can use questions before a learning experience to establish a “mental set” with which students process the learning experience. Again, higher-level questions tend to produce deeper levels of learning.

Get this material NGN 5,000

Message Us on WhatsApp  »