EFFECTS OF SCAFFOLDING AND JIGSAW I INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES ON SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN ECOLOGY IN NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA.

The study investigated the effect of Scaffolding and Jigsaw I instructional strategies on SSI students ’ achievement in Ecology in Nasarawa state, Nigeria. 13,526 (7,147 male and 6,379female) were used as the population of the study. The sample comprised three intact classes with 150 SS I Students using multistage random sampling technique. The design used was a quasi- experimental pretest, posttest post posttest non-equivalent control design. Three research questions with correspondent hypotheses were used. The instruments used were: Ecology Achievement Test (EAT). DescriptiMZstatistics of mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while inferential statistics ofANCOVA was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significant. The findings among others revealed that students who were taught Ecology using Scaffolding and Jigsaw I instructional strategies performed better than those taught using conventional method. The study therefore concludes that teaching students of Biology using Scaffolding and Jigsaw I instructional strategies improved students' academic achievement. Based on this finding, it is recommended among others that Biology teachers should be encouraged to develop and adopt the use of Scaffolding and Jigsaw I instructional strategies in teaching Biology. Government should endeavor to organize regular workshops to train Biology teachers on development and use of these strategies at SS I level.