EFFECT OF CONCEPT MAPPING STRATEGY ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF BIOLOGY STUDENTS IN KATSINA ZONAL QUALITY ASSURANCE

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of concept mapping strategy on academic achievement of biology students in katsina zonal quality assurance. Research objectives, research question and research hypothesis were formulated to guide the researcher in the conduct of the research work. The study sampled of 120 students out of the population of 1158 senior secondary school two (SS 11) biology students from the two randomly selected senior secondary schools in Katsina zonal quality assurance. The two schools were randomly placed at one experimental and one control groups. Quasi experimental control design was adopted. A pre- test administered to the groups established their equivalent ability. The subject in the experimental group were taught the concept mapping using concept mapping strategy and control group was taught the same concept using traditional lecture method for a period of one week. The instrument used for data collection was biology Achievement Test (BAT) to measure the students achievement in biology. The instrument was developed by the researcher and validated by Biology education specialists. Independent sample t-test was used to test the hypothesis using SPSS packages at 0.05 level of significance. The finding of the study reveal that there is significance difference in academic performance between the experimental and control group in favor of experimental group. The findings further reveal that there is no significant difference in academic performance between male and female students exposed to concept mapping strategy. Based on the finding it was recommended that concept mapping should be emphasized and incorporated into the biology education curriculum in secondary schools that better academic performance could be recorded in the subject biology.