Investigating the performance of senior high school students in biology practical work

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the performance of senior high school students in biology practical work in the Ledzokuku Municipality of the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The mixed method approach was used and the design used was sequential explanatory design. A sample of 90 senior high school form 2 (SHS2) elective biology students randomly drawn from three public senior high schools were used for the study. The study was guided by three research questions and two research hypotheses. The Biology Practical Performance Test (BPPT) developed by the researcher and semi-structured interview guide were used for the data collection. The data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and independent sample t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The results of interview were transcribed and analyzed thematically. The results showed that majority of the elective biology students performed below average in biology practical test. It was also seen that there was a significant difference in the performance of students in the tasks assigned to students during practical work. It was seen that students performed above average in Habitat task, averagely in Observation task and below average in Adaptation task, Drawing task and Classification task. The study also showed that there is no significant difference in the performance of males and females in biology practical work as measured by the Biology Practical Performance Test (BPPT). It was recommended that biology teachers should take students through a lot of practical activities to help improve students’ performance in practical work.