Effect of Collaborative Instructional Strategy on Male and Female Students’ Interest Ratings in Secondary School Chemistry in Benue State, Nigeria

This study investigated the Effect of Collaborative Instructional Strategy (CIS) on Students' Interest Ratings in Secondary School (SS) Chemistry in Benue State,Nigeria. A non-randomized pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design of equivalent groups was used. The population was 6,400 Senior Secondary School two (SSS 2) students offering Chemistry in all the 301 government approved co- educational secondary schools in Benue State for the 2015/16 academic year. The sample for the study was 216 students from 4 schools within the three Educational Zones of the state. Sampling technique used was multi-stage. Purposive sampling was used to select 4 out of 6 schools. Random sampling, with the tossing of a coin, was used to sample 2 schools which served as the experimental group while the other 2 schools acted as the control group. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Instrument used for the collection of relevant data was Chemistry Interest Inventory (CII), which was developed by the researcher. It was validated by an expert, and its reliability, Cronbach Coefficient Alpha, was 0.83. The data obtained were analyzed and interpreted using means (X) and standard deviations (SD) to answer the research questions while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses. The study found that students who were taught with CIS had a significantly higher mean interest rating than those who were taught with the Traditional Lecture Method (TLM) and there was no significant difference in the mean interest ratings of the male and female students who used CIS.Based on the result of this study, it was concluded that CIS was more effective in enhancing students' interest than TLM, in Secondary School Chemistry, and CIS was gender friendly. Thus, it was recommended, that in-service training, in the form of workshops, seminars, symposia and conferences, be organized for teachers occasionally by school administrators, government and professional bodies on the of use CIS, as an instructional strategy, to enhance students' interest in Secondary School Chemistry.