EFFECTS OF ANALOGY IN REMEDIATING SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ MISCONCEPTIONS IN PHOTOSYNTHESIS

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of analogy in remediating senior secondary school students’ misconceptions in photosynthesis in Ikare, Ondo State, Nigeria. A quasi-experimental design of pre-test, post-test control group was adopted for the study. The sample of the study consisted of 108 senior secondary school II biology students from two co-educational schools. The two schools were randomly classified into control and experimental group. Analogy of cake baking processes was used as instructional strategy for the experimental group while the control group was taught using the conventional method. Photosynthesis Misconceptions Test (PMT) with a reliability co-efficient of 0.74 was the instrument used for data collection. Frequency and Chi-square were used to analyze the data collected and findings revealed that biology students in senior secondary school held misconceptions in photosynthesis and analogy as an instructional strategy was able to remediate biology students’ misconceptions in photosynthesis than the convectional method of instruction. Based on the findings, it was recommended that, biology teachers should endeavour to first identify students’ misconceptions in photosynthesis and employ appropriate instructional strategies such as analogy to remediate such misconceptions.