MAKING THE STRANGE FAMILIAR MODEL AND STUDENTS’ CREATIVE THINKING SKILLS IN BASIC SCIENCE IN OYO SOUTH SENATORIAL DISTRICT, NIGERIA

Abstract

Students ought to be the architects of their own learning but majority of schools aim to educate
their students to achieve high exam scores by cramming and memorising the material which
deprives students of thinking, creativity and exploration. Educational approaches should change
to suit new demands in order to provide the workforce required for a technologically advanced and
quickly changing society. This study therefore, investigated Making the Strange Familiar Model
(MSFM) on students’ creative thinking skills in Basic Science (BS) in Oyo South Senatorial
District. It also examined the moderating effect of scientific reasoning ability (SRA) and selfefficacy on students’ creative thinking skills in BS. The pretest-posttest control group quasiexperimental design was adopted. The instruments were Basic Science Creative Thinking Skills (r
= 0.79, 0.76, 0.80, 0.76 and 0.78), Scientific Reasoning (r = 0.80) tests, Basic Science Self-efficacy
(r = 0.84) scale and instructional guides. The data were analysed using ANCOVA and EMM at
0.05 level of significance. The participants’ age was 12.05±1.10 years, 79.2% were concrete
thinkers and 89.6% had low self-efficacy. There was a significant main effect of treatment on
students’ creative thinking skills in BS (F(1,172) = 78.72, p = 0.48). The participants in MSFM
had the highest post- creative thinking skills mean score (13.97), followed by the control (9.98)
groups. There was no significant interaction effect of SRA and self-efficacy on students’ creative
thinking skills in BS. Basic Science teachers should adopt this model for improved students’
creative thinking skills regardless of SRA and self-efficacy.