Investigating the effectiveness of computer simulation on students’ performance in cell biology

Abstract

This study examined the effect of computer simulation instructional strategy on the academic performance of Cambridge students in biology. Four research questions guided this study. The action research design was adopted. An intact class of thirty-six grade eight Cambridge Lower Secondary School students were purposively selected as respondents for the study. The computer simulation instructional strategy was used consistently for six weeks to teach biology. After the sixth week, a post-intervention test was administered. The results showed that: The performance of the respondents on the post-intervention test (M=23.32) was significantly better than their performance on the pre-intervention test (M=12.58) indicating that the intervention had a positive impact on students’ performance; high ability learners performed nearly the same in the pre-intervention (M=25.44) and post-intervention (M=25.89) tests while medium ability learners performed significantly better in the post-intervention test (M=22.0) than in the pre-intervention test (M=18.78). Also, lower ability learners performed significantly better in the post-intervention test (M=15.45) than in the pre-intervention test (M=12.40) showing that computer simulations impacted low and medium ability learners more than high ability learners; computer simulation instructional strategy proves to be an effective instrument for bolstering the attitude of students towards the learning of biology (post: M=87.55; pre: M=75.36); computer simulation instruction approach had no differential impact on the performance of male and female students taught biology using the method (p=0.098 >0.05) . It was recommended that teacher education programmes in Kent International School should develop courses or training sessions that show teachers how to design computer simulations by themselves.