Effects of realistic and non -realist simulations on students achievement on the topic cell division

Abstract

This research was primarily designed to help improve the academic performance of students in Adventist Senior High School in the Sekyere South District in the study of Cell Division in Biology. The target population comprised Senior High School Biology students. Using the quasi-experimental design 74 second year biology students were selected for the study, the researcher put students into two groups; experimental and control groups, each group comprised of 37 students. The researcher developed two interventions realistic and non-realistic simulation teaching approaches to teach the topic. Using the developmental research approach, both teaching strategy were pilot tested with 30 SHS biology students. This was followed by the sample size implementation and evaluation of the techniques intervention. A paired sample Tukey-test analysis was used to analyze the scores from the tests thus the pre and post-test of both the experimental and control group. In the experimental group the p value gave 0.486 which showed that there was no significant difference between the means of the pre and post-test of the experimental group. The control group recorded a p-value of 0.000 meaning there was significant difference between the pre and post test. The Tukey-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances was used to analyze the post-test of experimental group and post-test of control group which showed there were statistically significant difference among the two, where p = 0.000 ( = 0.05). The study revealed that the selected students lacked conceptual understanding about the topic. Among other things it was suggested that biology teachers should be encourage to use realistic simulations approach in teaching and learning some abstract biological concept to minimax students understanding. Suggestions for further research into the problem of this study include the replication of the study in other schools in the country to provide a pool of data for possible full scale national attention.