COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF GUIDED DISCOVERY AND DISCUSSION METHOD ON BASIC SCIENCE STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND RETENTION IN KEFFI EDUCATIONAL ZONE OF NASARAWA STATE

The study examined the Comparative Effect of Guided Discovery and Discussion Teaching Methods on Basic Science Students Achievement and Retention in Keffi Educational Zone of Nasarawa State. It determined-whether. there is any significance differences exist in the achievement scores of students taught using Guided discovery and Discussion teaching methods. The study use a Quasi-experimental research design whereby pretest and post-test were used, because,-the study--used-settings outside the laboratory. The sample used for the study was 98 Junior (JSS2) students (50 males’ and 48 females). The study used intact classes, two schools were selected. One of the schools was used as Experimental group, while the."Other-one-war used~as control group. Thirty (30) multiple choice test items were developed by the researcher and were further validated by three experts from the faculty of education Nasarawa State University. Out of the three experts, two are from Science Technology and "Mathematics Education, and the third one is from the Department of educational foundation. The average scores of the three experts stood at 0.80 as the find validity index “The two intact classes selected were taught Basic Science for a period of six weeks using-the-two-teaching methods/-Six research questions and six Hypotheses guided the study and data collected from the pretest, posttest and retention were analyzed based on the stated hypotheses using means and Standard Deviations. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance-using^-NGQVA at F( 1,77). From the results, it was found that students who were exposed to Guided Discovery performed better than those who were exposed to discussion teaching method as indicated by their means and standard deviations thus, for students who were taught Guided-Discovery have the means scores of 50.29 and the standard deviation of 8.976 higher than their counter part whose mean is 48.70 and standard deviation of 6.731 Also, students have interest in Basic Science when taught using Guided Discovery method than those taught using Discussion Method. There was no significant difference in mean retention scores of students taught using Guided Discovery and Discussion Methods. The mean achievement scores of students was enhanced using Guided Discovery method. The two teaching methods were not discriminatory. Hence, the study concludes that Guided Discovery is the best methods of teaching Basic Science if properly employed by teachers