Effect of Collaborative and Creativity Strategies on Academic Performance and Retention of Agricultural Science Students in Bonny, Rivers State

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of collaborative and creativity strategies on academic performance and retention of Agricultural science students. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test, posttest, non-randomized control group design involving two treatment groups and one control. The sample size was one hundred and eighteen (118) SS2 Agricultural science students from three government approved private secondary schools in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State. Three research questions were raised and answered, three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Purposive sampling and simple random sampling techniques were used to select three (3) schools. Three intact classes were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The instrument for data collection was a researcher made twenty (20) items objective test questions titled Agricultural Science Performance Test. (APT). The reliability of the instrument was determined using Pearson Product Moment Correlation and the reliability coefficient obtained was 0.94. Mean and standard deviation were used in answering the research questions while t-test, Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and post hoc multiple comparison via least square difference using the SPSS package to test the hypotheses. The result of the study revealed that students taught using collaborative teaching and learning strategy performed significantly better and retained higher than those students taught the same lesson using creativity learning strategy and interactive teaching method respectively. It also shows that gender had no significant effect on student’s mean performance and retention scores. The study recommended that collaborative and creativity teaching and learning strategies should be adopted by Agricultural Science teachers as a teaching technique to improve student’s performance and retention of concepts. Teachers should be encouraged to use collaborative strategy for group learning, especially in a large class size as obtained in our school system. This would enhance confidence and cognition of students and invariably bring about better academic performance. Furthermore, In- service training programs for Agricultural Science teachers in form of seminars, workshops and conferences should be conducted on how to use collaborative and creativity teaching and learning strategies in the teaching of Agricultural Science concepts.