EFFECT OF JIGSAW INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY AS A TEACHING AND LEARNING INNOVATION IN INTEREST DEVELOPMENT ON SECCONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN PHYSICS.

Abstract

The  need  for  improvement   of  students’  interest  in  physics  continues   to necessitate  search into teaching methods  and  strategies they could allay the problem.  Hence  there  is the need  to improve  the teaching  and  learning of physics  in  our   secondary   schools.   With  the   several  opinions   and   the suggestions  to  alternative   to  learning  towards  tapping   into  the  multiple resources  in  physics  for sustainable  national  and  economic  development, this study tries to investigate  the  effect of jigsaw instructional strategy  as a teaching  and  learning  innovation   in  interest  development   on  secondary school students  in physics. Two research  questions  and two null hypotheses guided  the  study.  A  quasi-experimental,  non-randomized  control  group, pretest, and posttest design were used for the study. The sample size for the study consisted of 217 physics students drawn from the population  of 1,442 senior  secondary  school  1 (SSS 1) physics students  in government  owned co-educational  schools  in  Onitsha   Education   Zone   in  Anambra   State, Nigeria. Random  sample  without replacement  was used  to draw two intact classes each  for experimental and  control groups  drawn  from the sampled schools.  Physics Interest  Scale  (PIS) was  adopted for data  collection.  The instrument was estimated  on reliability co-efficient using Cronbach  Alpha for PIS which yielded reliability index of .78. The data  collected were analyzed using mean  and  standard  deviation  to answer the research  questions;  while the  hypotheses  were tested  at   0.05  level of significance using Analysis of Covariance  (ANCOVA). According to the study's findings, the jigsaw instructional strategy significantly affects students'  interest in learning about physics.