Abstract:
Cell Biology, one of the courses offered at Colleges of Education (CoEs) in Nigeria, is
basic for the understanding of all biological concepts. However, reports have shown
that pre-service teachers’ achievement and interest were poor and inconsistent.
Previous studies largely evaluated the implementation and effectiveness of pre-service
teachers’ Biology curriculum with little attention paid to intervention using Interactive
Invention Instructional Strategy (IIIS) and Crossword Puzzle-based Instructional
Strategy (CPIS). Therefore, this study was designed to determine the effects of IIIS
and CPIS on pre-service teachers’ learning outcomes (achievement and interest) in
Cell Biology in southwestern Nigeria. The study also examined the moderating effects
of problem-solving ability and cognitive style.
Jerome Brunner’s Constructivist Theory of Learning and Ashmore, Frazer and Casey’s
Problem-Solving Model were adopted as the framework, while the pretest-posttest
control group quasi-experimental design with a 3×2×2 factorial matrix was adopted.
Three Federal Colleges of Education were selected purposively out of the existing
CoEs in southwestern Nigeria and an intact class of Nigeria Certificate in Education 1
Biology students were enlisted. The participating CoEs were randomly assigned to IIIS
(146), CPIS (134) and control (124) groups. The instruments used were Pre-service
Teachers Cell Biology Achievement Test (r = 0.79), Pre-service Teachers Cell Biology
Interest Questionnaire (r = 0.82), Pre-service Teachers Cell Biology Problem-solving
Ability Scale (r = 0.79), Pre-service Teachers Cell Biology Cognitive Style Test (r =
0.86) and instructional guides. The treatment lasted 14 weeks. Data were analysed
using analysis of covariance and Bonferroni post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance.
The age of the pre-service teachers was 17.00±2.30 years, and 75.0% were female.
There was a significant main effect of treatment on pre-service teachers’ achievement
(F(2;403) = 37.78, partial η2 = 0.16). The participants in IIIS had the highest postachievement mean score (17.75), as against those in CPIS (17.17) and the control
(14.12) groups. There was a significant main effect of treatment on pre-service
teachers’ interest (F(2;403) = 55.00, partial η2 = 0.22). The participants in IIIS had the
highest post-interest mean score (82.25), as against those in CPIS (80.90) and the
control (73.52) groups. The main effects of problem-solving ability and cognitive style
were not significant. The two-way interaction effects were not significant. There was a
significant interaction effect of treatment, problem-solving ability and cognitive style
on pre-service teachers’ achievement (F(2;403) = 40.00, partial η2 = 0.02) in favour of
high problem-solving ability from IIIS group with analytical cognitive style. The threeway interaction effect on pre-service teachers’ interest was not significant.
Interactive invention and crossword puzzle-based instructional strategies enhanced
pre-service teachers’ Cell Biology learning outcomes in southwestern Nigeria,
regardless of their problem-solving ability and cognitive style. These strategies should
be adopted to teach pre-service Biology teachers in other to cater for their deficiency in
Cell Biology.
