Effect of Problem - Based Strategy on Performance in Concept Ecosystem Among Secondary School Students In Zaria Educational Zone, Kaduna State

This paper investigated the effects of problem - based strategy on performance in concept ecosystem among secondary school students in Zaria Educational Zone, Kaduna State. Problem based instructional strategy is relatively new hence the need to ascertain to what extent it would assist at improving the performance of secondary school students in concept ecosystem in geography. A lot of concerns have hitherto before now been raised by stakeholders on how instructional strategy have been a major challenge to high performance by students in geography. This has necessitated the call for a paradigm change from the traditional method to the one being investigated in this work. It was on this note that its effect is being investigated before long. A total number of three (3) research objectives, research questions and hypotheses each were formulated in this study. The research design used in this study was quasi experimental research, using researcher designed Geography Achievement test. The target population for this study was comprised of five thousand, five hundred and forty - eight (5,548) SS II students from Zaria Educational Zone. A sample size of three hundred and fifty - seven (357) respondents was therefore selected at random using simple sampling technique for the study. It thus represented two (2) study schools with two (2) classes of students from SS II involved in this study, one was the controlled group (conventional method) and the other, is the experimental group (problem - based strategy). Sole instrument used in this study was validated and adjudged reliable via Cronbach alpha (r) reliability, reliability co - efficient scores obtained for the instrument was 0.882. Data analyses were undertaken through the use of inferential statistics. Kruskal Wallis, Independent t - test and one way analysis of variance statistics were used in the testing of hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings of this study revealed that there is significant effect of problem - based strategy on performance in concept ecosystem among secondary school students in Zaria Educational Zone, Kaduna State. In addition, the study revealed that significant gender difference exists in the effect of problem - based strategy on performance in concept ecosystem among secondary school students in Zaria Educational Zone, Kaduna State. In conclusion, significant effect of problem - based strategy resulted to increase in performance of secondary school students in concept ecosystem. The study therefore recommended that the use of problem - based strategy should be encouraged among geography teachers through constant supervision. That Geography teacher should be motivated to using these modern methods of teaching through sponsorship to workshops and in - house trainings. Keywords: Academic Performance, Effects, Geography, Problem - Based Learning