Effectiveness of Guided and Open Inquiry Instructional Strategies on Science Process Skills and Self-Efficacy of Biology Students in Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study determined the effectiveness of guided and open inquiry instructional strategies on the science process skills of students taught Biology in senior secondary schools in Osun State, Nigeria. It also compared the self-efficacy of students taught Biology using guided inquiry with those taught Biology using open inquiry instructional strategies in senior secondary school in Osun State. The goal was to provide empirical information on the effectiveness of guided and open inquiry strategies on students’ learning outcome in Biology. The study adopted the non-equivalent pretest posttest quasi-experimental research design. Two research instruments were used to collect data for the study namely, (i) Biology Process Skills Observation checklist (BPSOC) and (ii) Self-efficacy Rating Scale (SeRS). Data collected were analyzed using appropriate inferential statistics of analysis of Covariance. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the science process skills of Biology students exposed to Open Inquiry and those exposed to guided inquiry strategy (F= 0.785, p>0.05). The results also showed that a significant difference existed in the self-efficacy of students taught using Guided Inquiry and Open Inquiry strategies (F = 11.64, p < 0.05) as those exposed to Open Inquiry had the better self-efficacy score than the other groups as shown in the mean difference between open and guided inquiry strategies. The study concluded that Open inquiry strategy was more effective in improving the self-efficacy of the respondents but was not effective in improving the science process skills of respondents in the study area.