Assessing the Effectiveness of Audiovisual, Kinesthetic and Lecture Instructional Methods in the Teaching and Learning of Ecological Concepts

This article investigated the effects of audiovisual and kinesthetic instructional methods on students� performance in ecology among Adu Gyamfi Senior High School Biology students, Ashanti Region. Quasi experimental design was adopted for the study. A sample of 100 students was purposively selected for the study. Ecology achievement test was constructed and used to collect data for the study and reliability coefficient of the instrument was calculated to be 0.81 using Kudder-Richardson formula 20 (KR-20). Data obtained from the study were subjected to both descriptive and inferential analysis such as mean, standard deviation, box plot, mean plot, eta squared effect size, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA and Post-Hoc Tukey HSD test with the support of SPSS version 20. It was established that both kinesthetic (p = greater than.001) and audiovisual (p = greater than.001) instructional methods were superior to conventional lecture method in the teaching and learning of Ecology. However, the paired comparison of kinesthetic instructional method and audiovisual instructional method showed a mean difference of 1.29, which indicates no statistical significant difference between these two methods (p =.641 greater than.05), hence there was no superiority of one on the other. One of the reasons to this result might be because the students in the kinesthetic and audiovisual instructional groups were taught according to their learning styles. Finally, the study revealed that gender had no significant effect on students� performance in teaching and learning of ecological concepts. Again, there was no interaction effect of the teaching methods and gender on the students� academic performance in the concept of ecology. Based on this, it was concluded that SHS Biology students learn ecological concepts better, when instructional method matches students� learning styles. It is therefore recommended that students� learning styles should be considered when teaching ecological concepts, and teachers should be trained and re-trained on the use of audiovisual and kinesthetic learning styles in teaching ecological concepts.