THE ROLE OF COOPERATIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS COMMITMENT TO PHYSICS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES OF KOGI STATE

Physics has continued to generate favorable commendation in the educational landscape of every society in the modern-day world. However, the concern about the increasing decline in students performance and the growing purported difficulties associated with the subject has continued to attract research attention. There are intimations that secondary school students in rural communities are more likely to commit less effort to science subjects. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to investigate cooperative instructional strategy as a well-researched teaching method that could also improve students commitment to physics. Two hundred and nineteen secondary school students in the rural communities in Kogi State, Nigeria, enrolled in the science classes participated in the study. A quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test research design was employed for the study. The participants were grouped into two different groups for the pre-test and post-test analyses. The experimental group was exposed to the cooperative instructional teaching method, while the control group was taught conventionally. An independent-samples t-test was performed to determine differences between the observed and the control groups on a commitment to physics in the post-test study with a statistically significant MD= 10.85, t (117) = 20.026, p = .001. It was concluded that cooperative instructional strategy enhances students commitment to physics. The study recommends robust training of teachers on the use of collaborative instructional strategies.