Students’ views of their teachers and their own attitude towards biology laboratory work in the Bawku East District

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate students’ views of their teachers and their own attitudes towards biology laboratory work at SHSs in Bawku-East district, Ghana. The mixed method approach and sequential explanatory design were used. A sample of 160 senior high school form 3 (SHS3) elective biology students randomly drawn from three public senior high schools were used for the study. The study was guided by three research questions. Questionnaires and checklist were developed by the researcher and used for data collection. The data collected were analysed using mean, standard deviation, and standard error. The results showed that majority of the elective biology students performed poorly in biology laboratory practical work. Results from the study showed that most of the biology students within the Bawku East district performed poorly or below expectation in biology practical work. The results suggested that none of the three (3) schools has all the laboratory equipment sufficiently, and are generally not good for use among the various schools and will definitely affect student’s performance negatively. The study found out that 100.00% of the schools had laboratories but were not well equipped for practical work in their respective schools. It is imperative that biology teachers take students through a lot of practical activities to help improve students’ performance in biology laboratory work in the second cycle institutions. The study concluded that, teachers have positive attitudes but few also have exhibited negative attitudes with regards to laboratory practical or work within the Bawku East District. The study has shown that, biology students within the Bawku East district exhibited positive attitudes towards biology laboratory work. Also, some of the teachers do not allow students to have hands on the practical tools during biology practical lessons.