Impact of Field Trip on Academic Performance of Secondary School Students in Ecology Concepts in Kaduna State

Abstract

The study investigated the impact of field trips on the academic performance of secondary school students in ecology concepts in Zaria Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria. An experimental design that utilized pre-test control group design was adopted. The population of the study consisted of 2834 SSI students from (19) public secondary schools in Zaria Educational Zone of Kaduna State. Four (4) out of nineteen schools were randomly selected from both urban and rural areas where two schools each were used as experimental and control groups respectively. The experimental group was taught. Using field trip teaching strategy while the control group was taught by lecture method. A stratified random sampling technique was employed to select the sample from the four schools and a total of 200 students were selected as a sample size from both urban and rural areas. The instruments used for this study were ecology, performance test (EPT) with reliability value 0.83 and Ecology Retention Test (ERT) will a reliability value of 0.85 aimed at determining the performance and retention of the students. One research question with a corresponding hypothesis was formulated answered and tested at 0.05 level of significance respectively. After the data were collected; the research questions were tested with descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation and the hypotheses were tested using inferential statistics i.e. independent sample test (t-test). The findings of th4e study showed that the field-trip teaching strategy favoured the experimental group in the ecology concept. The study further confirmed that field trip teaching strategy favoured urban experimental groups, one of the major recommendations made is that government should make the use of field trip teaching strategy compulsory made is that government should make the use of field trip teaching strategy compulsory particularly in the teaching and learning of ecology concept at senior secondary school level.