Effect of Problem-Based Learning Strategy on Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement and Attitude in Agricultural Science in Gaya Education Zone, Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of problem-based learning on academic achievement and attitude among agricultural science students in secondary schools in the Gaya Education Zone, Kano State. Four research questions and four null hypotheses were formulated and tested at the 0.05 level of significance. Quasi-experimental design was adopted. The population of the study was made up of 3,823 SS II Agricultural Science students, consisting of 2,106 males and 1,717 females. Stratified simple random sampling was used to select four schools, while simple random sampling was used in selecting four intact classes, two as experiment and two as control groups, comprising of 99 and 94 students, respectively. For two instruments used for data collection titled 'Agricultural Science Achievement Test' and 'Agricultural Science Students Attitude Questionnaire', reliability coefficients of 0.72 and 0.68 were obtained, respectively. Mean and standard deviation were used for answering the research questions, while the z-test was used in testing the null hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study, among others, indicated that students taught agricultural science using problem-based learning had higher academic achievement mean and attitude ratings mean scores than those taught using the lecture method.