An Investigation of Concept Attainment Model on Learning Achievement in Biology in Public Secondary Schools in Kibwezi sub-County, Kenya

For quite some time, Biology performance in public secondary schools has been poor. This has been attributed to the nature of teaching methods, abstract nature of biology and the teaching-learning resources. This study sought to investigate the effect of concept attainment model on learning achievement in biology in public secondary schools of Kibwezi sub-county, Kenya. There is however inadequate research done on the effect of concept attainment model in the teaching-learning process in the classroom situation. The objective of the study was to establish how concept attainment model influences student’s performance in biology concepts. The research was based on Bruner’s learning theory and Component display theory by Dr. D. Merill. The research methodology was quantitative methods with a Quasi Experimental design as the research design. Simple random sample of four schools were obtained from 52 mixed sex sub-county schools. The sample size comprised of 224 students from the four schools of 52, 58, 58 and 56 respectively. Piloting was in one public mixed sub-county secondary school of Makindu sub-county. Concept attainment test (CAT Constructed by the researcher was the instrument used to collect data. This CAT was administered into two groups, one experimental and one control group before intervention and then to all four groups after intervention. It was validated by use of experts’ judgment in the department of educational psychology and technology and its reliability was estimated at 0.7 by having the split-up test administered. Analysis of data was by use of statistical package of social science (SPSS) Version 21.0. The analysis involved the use of descriptive statistics that tested on frequencies, means and percentages and the inferential statistics that tested on t-test, ANOVA at a co-efficient of alpha α level 0.05. The findings of this study are likely tobenefit secondary school students and educational stakeholders like Kenya institute of curriculum development (KICD). The study showed that students taught using CAM scored better and had increased biology content than those taught using the traditional methods.