Mastering the Learning Cycle Strategy for Improved Academic Performance in Ecology at Senior Secondary Schools in Nigeria

Inappropriate use of instructional strategies by teachers has been linked to one of the problems of poor performances of senior secondary school students in Biology at the Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) in Nigeria. Therefore, mastering instructional strategies appropriate for effective teaching of Biology is required to improve students’ performances. This study examined the effects of learning cycle instructional strategy on students’ performance in ecology. The influence of (i) gender (ii) and cognitive style were examined on senior school students’ performance after instruction. A quasi-experimental study was adopted for the study. Population for the study was all SSII students offering Biology. A purposive sampling technique was used to select two public secondary schools in Ilorin city. A researcher-designed Ecology Achievement Test (EAT) and adapted copies of cognitive style questionnaire were used for data collection. Mean was used to answer research questions and ANCOVA was used to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The Findings of the study were that: there was a significant difference in the performance of senior school students’ taught ecology using learning cycle as to those taught with conventional method, there was no significant difference in the performance of male and female senior school students exposed to learning cycle; there was no significant difference in the performance of senior school students exposed to Learning cycle based on cognitive style. It was recommended among others, that Biology teachers should be encouraged to adopt Learning cycle Strategy to teach biology in order to enhance students’ performance in biology particularly in ecology.