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Effects of dialogic peer and teacher guided discourse patterns on students interest in biology in Yola Educational Zone of Adamawa State


OR Ugwuadu

Abstract

This study determined the effects of dialogic, peer and teacher – guided discourse patterns on students’ interest in biology. The study also determined the influence of the discourse patterns on male and female students’ interest in biology. Three research questions and five null hypotheses, tested at 0.05 level of significance, guided the study. The design of the study was quasi-experimental of non-equivalent comparative group design. A sample of 164 SSII students (94 males and 70 females) from three intact classes in Yola educational zone of Adamawa State participated in the study. The three intact classes were drawn from three Secondary Schools selected through purposive sampling technique. Discourse patterns were randomly assigned to intact classes in the sampled schools. The main instrument used for data collection was a Biology Interest Scale (BIS) which was both face and construct validated. The internal reliability coefficient of BIS was 0.84 established with Cronbach alpha method. The  coefficient of stability was 0.75 and 0.75 for the first and second administration of the test respectively determined with test – retest method and calculated using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Method. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while ANCOVA was used to test the hypotheses. Result of the study shows that the three discourse patterns enhanced students’ interest in biology. There is no significant difference in the mean interest scores of male and female students taught biology using the three discourse patterns. It was recommended among others that three discourse patterns be adopted for effective teaching of biology in Secondary Schools.

Keywords: guided discourse patterns, students’ interest in biology, cooperative learning strategy


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eISSN: 2508-1128
print ISSN: 0855-501X