Instructional Leadership Intervention for AI-Supported Basic Science Teaching and Students' Basic Science Achievement and Scientific Reasoning in North Central Nigeria

The study investigated the effect of an instructional leadership intervention for AI-supported Basic Science teaching on students' Basic Science achievement and scientific reasoning in North Central Nigeria, using a quasi-experimental research design. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The population comprised Junior Secondary II Basic Science students in Kogi Education Zone C, Kogi State, North Central Nigeria. The sample consisted of 200 students purposively selected from six public secondary schools, three assigned to the instructional-leadership-supported AI (experimental) group and three to the conventional supervision (control) group. In the three experimental schools, principals and heads of department received a structured instructional leadership intervention, comprising workshops and classroom-based coaching, to guide teachers in integrating specific artificial intelligence (AI) tools into Basic Science lessons; teachers and school leaders in the three control schools continued with conventional instructional supervision without AI-integration support. A Basic Science Achievement Test (BSAT, KR-20 = 0.81) and a Scientific Reasoning Test (SRT, adapted from Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning, Cronbach alpha = 0.79) were used for data collection. Research questions were answered with mean and standard deviation, while hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance, with the clustering of students within schools acknowledged as a limitation of the student-level analysis. The findings revealed a significant difference in the mean Basic Science achievement scores of students in the instructional-leadership-supported AI group and those in the conventionally supervised group, F(1,197) = 28.930; p = 0.000 < 0.05, in favour of the AI-supported group. There was also a significant difference in the mean scientific reasoning scores between the two groups, F(1,197) = 17.845; p = 0.000 < 0.05, in favour of the AI-supported group. There was no significant difference between the mean achievement scores of male and female students in the AI-supported group, F(1,101) = 1.842; p = 0.178 > 0.05, and no significant difference between their mean scientific reasoning scores, F(1,101) = 2.203; p = 0.141 > 0.05. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that instructional leadership training for AI-integrated Basic Science teaching be extended to more schools in North Central Nigeria, since it enhanced both students' achievement and scientific reasoning irrespective of gender.