The Influence of Identified Student and School Variables on Students’ Science Process Skills Acquisition

Abstract

Process skills are very fundamental to science but there is still a serious educational gap in bringing these skills into the classroom for students’ acquisition. The purpose of this study therefore was designed to ascertain the influence of selected variables such as: sex, students’ attitude, school location, school type, laboratory adequacy and class size; on students’ science process skills acquisition. The design adopted for the study is an ex-post facto design. The sample consisted of 450 SS III science students from Adamawa and Taraba States of Nigeria using stratified random sampling technique. The research instrument was Science Process Skills Knowledge Test (SPSKT) which was subjected to both content and face validity using Kuder Richardson formula 21 to obtain the correlation value of 0.78. The SPSKT was analyzed using means and t-test statistics. The study revealed that sex; school location and school type does not influence students’ acquisition of science process skills while students’ attitude, laboratory adequacy and class size influences students’ acquisition of science process skills. Based on the findings, recommendations were made amongst which are equipping all secondary schools laboratories to enable teachers adopt methods that will lead students to have the appropriate skills and have positive attitude towards science and using enabling environment which discourages large class sizes in science classrooms.

Keywords: Sex, students’ attitude, school location, school type, laboratory adequacy and class size