The Impact of Practical Work Experience on Academic Achievement in Biology among Senior Secondary School Students in Yenagoa Metropolis

The study investigated the impact of practical work experience on academic achievement in biology at the senior school level in Yenagoa Metropolis. Additionally, the moderating effect of gender on the dependent variable was examined. Two public secondary schools were randomly selected for this study, and one intact class was randomly selected from each school and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The sample size consisted of 219 students out of 256 students offering biology at the Senior Secondary one (SSI) level in the selected schools.

A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was adopted. The experimental group used a practical work experience strategy, while the control group was taught using a modified lecture strategy. The study used the Biology Achievement Test (BAT). Experts in biology education validated the BAT, and a reliability of 0.73 was obtained using Kuder-Richardson Formula 21. Two hypotheses and two research questions guided the study, and the hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 significance level.

Differences in mean scores were subjected to t-test statistics, which were significant in favor of the experimental group and were found to be gender-friendly. It was recommended that practical allowances should be paid to science teachers to motivate them to adopt practical work experience strategies in the teaching-learning process in schools.