EFFECT OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING APPROACH ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ INTEREST AND ACHIEVEMENT IN ELECTRICITY IN BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined the effect of Problem Based Learning Approach on senior secondary school students’ interest and achievement in physics in Bauchi State Nigeria. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design, which was a non-randomized pre-test post-test research design. The population of the study comprised of 4,500 senior secondary one (SS I) students offering Physics in all the 15 senior secondary schools located within Bauchi metropolis. Purposive random sampling technique was used to select four intact science classes from two equivalent co-educational secondary schools that were distantly located from each other within Bauchi metropolis. The instruments used for the data collection were Physics Achievement Test (PAT) and Electricity Interest Inventory (EII). The internal consistency of the instruments was established using Cronbach Alpha for the EII and its internal consistency was gotten as 0.61 and the internal consistency of the PAT was gotten as 0.76 using the Test Retest method to establish the reliability. Data collected for the study was analysed using ANCOVA and the results showed that the PBL approach had a more positive effect on students’ interest than the conventional approach. The results also showed that the PBL approach had a more positive effect on students’ achievement than the conventional approach. It was found that male students had a slightly higher mean interest rate when they learnt electricity using PBL approach than their female counterparts but the difference was not statistically significant. From the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that Physics teachers should endeavour to develop and adopt the use of PBL approach in physics learning.