CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Science is acknowledged as the bedrock of national development. This implies that

any nation who desires to attain national development must make science education a

priority (Ebuka, 2014).

The introduction of science in Nigeria dated as far back as 1878. First science was

taught as general science, later there was an introduction of the basic science , biology

physics and chemistry. General science, was seen as the science subject which was

suitable and recommended for the less able. The teaching of science into simple

science in Nigeria came into existence following the worldwide more number to

reform, science education. It was triggered of by the launching of Sputnik into space

by 1957. The development agitated the mind of Americans and Britain's, who traced

the deficiency to the school system, who felt if science was properly taught above

primary and secondary school. This led to reform of USA science curriculum like

biological science curriculum, study for biology, chemical bond approve for

chemistry, physical science study committee for physics and elementary science study

for the junior class and science curriculum and science curriculum improvement study

for the same Junior class. Nigeria in line with the global trend and in need of the

developing indigenous science curriculum felt that the stage was set for curriculum

development activities. The WAEC at this point, in the early 68 requested the scan of

science Teacher's Association of Nigeria to review the existing science syllables. In

the cause of the review, there are arose in need to set up the committee for the review.

The committee felt that the biology, chemistry and physics curricula needed a solid

science foundation in the first two years of science education. They felt that without

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that solid foundation that no meaningful science learning will be possible. This led to

the formation of joining science committee from physics, chemistry and biology who

suggested topic in their sub area that could be blended to form integrated science

curriculum, the effort and suggestions to join working committee was eventually

critialized and blended in the formulation of philosophy, content, skills, methodology

and evaluation procedures of the document known today as the Nigeria integrated

science projects.

The joint working committee were given the following terms of references:

1) The review and revise the existing science syllables.

2) To produce teachers and students materials that are relevant to review syllables.

3) To perform other such functions that are connected with science curricula

development.

4) To cooperate with other development to achieve this ends.

Financial and material support were recieved from the following

1) The Ford foundation in America through the comparative foundative education.

2) From the Curriculum Renewal and Education Development Overseas (CREDO)

3) Through the British Council in Nigeria

4) From the United Nation Education Scientific and Cultural Organization who gave

them curriculum materials

5) From the lomgman publishing company limited. They gave support in form of

curriculum materials.

Integrated science is one of the compulsory subjects offered by all students at the

Junior Secondary School level in Nigeria. It emphasizes those concepts, which are

common to all sciences – the processes of science and the skills associated with them.

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Integrated science means the study of five basic natural sciences which are physics,

chemistry, biology, earth sciences and astronomy and how they overlap.

Brown (1977) identified four groups of meanings of integration in science:

(1) As the unity of all knowledge.

(2)As the conceptual unity of the sciences.

(3) As a unified process of scientific enquiry.

(4) As interdisciplinary study of the three branches of science, physics , chemistry

and biology.

The Federal Government of Nigeria acknowledged the importance of science

education in line with the global perspectives of science forall and made provisions

for science

and technology education.

In pursuit of goals of “Science for all” current reforms in science education lay

emphasison scientific literacy and the need to achieve equity and excellence in

science classrooms (Okeke, 2011). In Nigeria, the situation is not different. The

government through official policies and actions has demonstrated commitment to the

inculcation of scientific literacy among allNigeriansandnot only for those pursing

scientific careers or science professionsbut also for those in non science related

courses. One obvious example of government action in this regardis making science

compulsory (i.e. a core subject) in our Primary and Junior Secondary Schools.

According to Omole (2012),the Federal Government of Nigeria did not lose sight of

providing various modalities or strategies for implementing the policies at various

levels of education with respect to science education. Specifically, at the

secondarylevel, the government indicated that efforts will bemade to provide the

following educational services: school library, basic health scheme, counseling,

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educational resource centers and provision of specialist teachers in schools. It also

maintained that teaching shall be practical, exploratory and experimental in nature,

with the medium of instruction being in English language and language of the

immediate environment (Okpala, 2010). Also at the primarylevel, government

promised that education shall be tuition free, universal and compulsory. As a

consequence of this, the efforts of science teachers at various levels of education have

been directed at ensuring that the goals of science teaching are being attained and not

merely pursued.

These efforts have had relatively little impact on the performanceand interestof

students in science subjects. Several research reports (Ogbu,2012,Thorton, 2008,

Umar, 2007, Olorundare, 2006) indicated that students‟achievement in science has

been poor and unsatisfactory year after year.The students‟ poor achievement in

science subjects were attributed to the teaching method (Achimugu, 2014 and Ugama,

2012).The major challenges of Basic Science education in Nigeria is that the Basic

Science taught in schools fellbelow expectation.

According to Ibe-Uro and Ukpai (2013), the science learning experiences in primary

and secondary schools are not appropriate and consistent with the demands of the

society at large. Okoro and Ukpai (2010) pointed out that there is glaring disconnect

between what is learnt in school and what students practice at home or work place.

Graduates of science subjects are expected to acquire appropriate level of literacy,

numeracy, manipulative, communicative and life skills and develop interest for

further learning of science subjects in senior secondary classes and beyond (Bernard,

2013).At the primary school level, the pupils are expected to;

1.Explain events in nature;

2.Identify those beliefs that are superstitious;

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3.Solve simple problems they encounter on a day to day basis;

4.Develop their physical skills e.g through the proper handling of objects and

equipments;

5.Develop social skills e.g establishing friendship while working co-operatively in

group;

6. Satisfy their natural curiosity through opportunities to carry out scientific

investigations (FGN, 2004).

Unfortunately, what is obtained now is that science students lack adequate

knowledge, skills, ability, experience and attitude towards science(Adigwe and

Okonkwo, 2013).The situation is not differentiate the primary schools where pupils

cannot:

1.Solve simple problems they encounter on a day to day basis.

2.Explain events in nature.

3.Develop their physical skills e.g through the proper handling of objects and

equipments.

4.Develop social skills e.g establishing friendship while working cooperatively in

groups.

These are indications of lack of scientific skills in them. For manypupils, there is

generally difficulty in understanding and application of the concepts taught. As a

result, many tend to exhibit a poor attitude towardsthe study ofscience, which has led

tolack of personal and social awareness of the importance of science and inability to

solve problems using the science process skills.

A number of factors have been identified to be responsiblefor the poor

performanceand lack of interestin science from the various studies conducted in

Nigeria. These include the lack of motivation for most teachers, poor infrastructural

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facilities, inadequate textual materials,attitude of students to science learning, lack of

teaching skills and competence by science teachers and lack of opportunities for

professional development for science teachers (Adirika & Kanu, 2012).

In more specific terms,Achimugu(2013) attributed this to continuous use of

ineffective strategies by teachers. According to Achimugu, lecture method which is

the instructional mode mostly used by teachersis teacher –centred approach in which

the teacher does most of the activities while the students are either passive listeners

orareslightlyinvolved. This approach involves lecture and story telling method of

teaching and the instructional strategy is chalk –talk technique.

Further, Lawal (2008) opined that this teaching mode does not promote active

learning of science subjects because it appeals only to the sense of hearing.Thus, a

situation where science teachers use teacher centred –lecture –chalk –talk

instructional mode in teaching, It's core premises include the requirement that

learning should be based on doing some hands –on experiments and activities. The

idea of process –based learning is rooted in the common notion that children are

active learners rather than passive recipients of information. If children are provided

the opportunity to explore by their own and provided an optimum learning

environment, then the learning becomes joyfuland long lasting.

According to Harry (2007) the process based method of teaching and learning science

involves the use of science process skills in solving problems which children

comeacross in their daily lives. Cogne (2004)defines process skill as an ability in

carrying out mental operation and physical actions that can be developed through

experience. This implies that science process skills include not only cognitive skills

but also psychomotor skills. As an innovative approach to teaching science,this

method according to Chair (2009) allows children to perform mental processes such

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as observing, classifying,measuring, forming hypothesis, analyzing, which lead to

discovery and generalization.

In more specific terms, process–based method involves pupils handling objects, being

actively involved in:

1.Observing and noting attributes of objects with their sense organs.

2.Classifying objects based on specified attributes,may be by colour, shape, size etc.

3.Using measuring devices which employ standardized units like ruler, tape,

measuring cylinders etc to describe the properties of an object such as height, width,

length, area, volume, time, and mass.

4.Using written and spoken words, graphs, tables, diagrams, write-ups and other

information presentations to express their observations and experimental results.

5.Drawing a conclusion about a specific event based on observations and data

collected.

6.Anticipating consequences of a new or changed situation using past experiences and

observations.

7.Manipulating objects or data, either collected by self or by others, in order to make

meaningful information and then finding patterns in that information that lead to

making inferences, prediction and hypothesis.

8.Defining terms within the context of one‟s own experiences, stating a definition in

terms of “what you do” and “what you observe”.

9.Proposing an explanation based on observations.

10.Investigating, manipulating materials and testing to determine a result.

11.Formulatingmental and physical models like charts, pictures, diagrams etc to

represent the „real world‟.

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In this sense therefore process –based method means any learning that involves

physical and mental action, stimulating for creative action or expression. Hence in this

work; it will be used to keep the pupils active throughout the lesson periods to

enhance learning and stimulate their interest.

Retention is an important component of science education and its thorough

understanding is very necessary to enhance students‟ achievement and success and

their participation in science related careers. Retention of knowledge is the act of

keeping knowledge rather than losing it. It is the ability to store facts or knowledge

and remember themeasily. Retentionis the idea or facts the child has in his or her

memory after the child has been exposed to some learning experiences. The purpose

of education is to be able to transfer knowledge to new situation.

This knowledge must be retained within an individual memory till the time of

recall.However many students fail to perform well in science subjects because of their

inability to recall or remember what they have learnt. According toArchibong(2012),

students‟low achievement and interest in science subject results from memory loss or

forgetting as a result of students‟inability to encodethe informationthey have learnt

into their long termmemory for future use. When this happens, the information merely

fades away just like as water passively leaks out of a bucket. Archibong pointed out

that effective science teaching positively influences students ‟retention of

information. Hence in this study,the use o f hands-on, minds-on activities which is

embedded in process-based method will make the lesson meaningful to the pupils

andthis will help them to form the image and picture of the concepts learnt, facilitate

the encoding, storing and transfer of the information learnt into the long term memory

and once theinformation is „filed‟ in thelong term memory, it can be retrieved.

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An effective science teaching consists of processes enabling students to gain scientific

inquiry skills, display critical thinking skills and internalize scientific concepts and

principles (Hershberger, 2007).

In the light of this, it is clear that for science and technology teaching to be effective,

learning processes where students actively participate in the process should be

adopted by the teachers.

The role of the teacher is to create varied opportunities for students to engage in

activities that will enable them make sense of the world around them, make new

discoveries, solve interesting problems and develop skills that are sustainability

driven (Adipere, 2010).

In this respect, teachers need to exploit scientific process based learning method to

enable the students understand the nature of science, develop positive attitude towards

science and also retain what they have learnt for future use.

Statement of the Problem.

A lot of concern has been raised by science educators and psychologists with regards

to poor and unimpressive achievement of students in science subjects which is

attributed mainly to the teaching method. Evidence shows that teachers use ineffective

methods and strategies in science teaching, which among other factors contribute to

students‟ poor achievement in science subjects. Achimugu (20014) observed that the

teaching method employed by teachers is mostly conventional lecture method which

does not involve much of students students or students teacher interactions. Thus

scientific processes and attitudes are not emphasized and acquired and the products of

Basic Science are unable to apply the science they learn in school to solve their

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personal and societal problems. It thus becomes necessary to try out a method that is

more democratic and learner friendly, which will ensure better learning outcomes.

Furthermore, there is no study known to the researcher that has investigated the effect

of process –based method at the primary school level. Many research carried out on

process based method were focused on secondary school level and had not been

extended to primary school level.It therefore become imperative to investigate the

effect of process –based teaching method on the primary school pupils‟ academic

achievement, retention and attitude towards science.

The problem of this work is to determinethe effectiveness of using process–based

method in teaching some Basic Science concepts on pupils‟ achievement, attitude

towards science and on retention of what is learnt. The question then is; will teaching

Basic Science with the process-based approach enhance primary school pupils‟

achievement, attitude and retention.

Purpose of study

The main purpose of this study is todeterminethe effects of process–based teaching

method on primary school pupils ‟Academic Achievement‟ Retention and Attitude

toward science.

Specifically to determine;

1.Effects of process-based teaching method on primary school pupils‟ achievements

coresin Basic Science when compared with the control group taught with

conventional method.

2.Effects of process-based teaching method on primary school pupils‟attitude scoresin

Basic Science when compared with the control group taught with conventional

method.

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3.Effects of process-based teaching method on primary school pupils‟ retention

scores in Basic Science when compared with the control group taught with

conventional method.

4.The influence of gender onprimary school pupils ‟achievementscores in Basic

Science when taught with process-based method.

5.The influence of genderon primary school pupils‟ attitude scores in Basic Science

when taught with process-based method.

6.The influence of gender on primary school pupils‟ retention scores in Basic Science

when taught with process-basedmethod.

Significance of the Study

The findings of this study will be of importance to teachers, schools, curriculum

planners, and the government.

The findings will help teachers see the need to provide real objects even if improvised

during classroom instructions to enhance learning and stimulate pupils‟ interest. It

will also help teachers to identify the instructional mode that will be more facilitative

of instruction and that will help them to select, organize and present their content

concisely to minimize students‟ low achievement.

The findings will also enable schools to make available and positive utilization of

resources which are very few in majority of rural schools and also make provision of

essential resources and encourage teachers to develop relevant materials in order to

enhance teaching.

The findings will help curriculum planners to identify an effective methodthat will be

used in teaching Basic Science in the primary schools. This will help them in the

selection of primary science contents, and activities suitable for thepupils.

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It will also help them to arrange professional development programmes for

elementary teachers to adopt more interactive methods of teaching science, make it

more relevant to pupils‟ lives and society so that they see itsvalue and importance.

The findings may bring out discussion which will enable the government to organize

and provide equipments, learning materials and infrastructure that will enhance the

teaching and learning ofbasicscience in primary schools.

Finally, the findings will generate many opportunities for further research.

Scope of the study

The researcher used process –based teaching approach and conventionalmethod to

teach primary six pupils these Basic Science concepts of: Magnetism, Lever, Force

and Solar System shown tobe difficult for pupils (Debra, 2011), and determine its

effectiveness in enhancing academic achievement, retention of Basic Science

concepts and attitude towards science.

The study was carried out in four local government areas in Nnewi and Ogidi

Education Zones of Anambra state. The study was carried out in the first term of the

academic session. Primary six pupils fromeight public primary schools in Nnewi and

Ogidi Education Zone were used for the study.

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