SCIENCE PROCESS SKILLS OF PRE-PRIMARY PUPILS IN OYO STATE: EFFECTS OF INDOOR AND OUTDOOR EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Abstract

Science process skills is important for child and national development. Various  researches have revealed that many of the pre-primary children are deficient in  science process skills, the cause of which can be traced to the method employed by  teachers in teaching science which is mostly the teacher-centred method also known  as direct instruction with little or no attention given to concrete learning experiences.  Hence, this study examined the effects of indoor and outdoor experiential learning on  science process skills of pre-primary children in Ibadan, Nigeria. The study adopted  a pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design with 3X2 factorial design  due to the suitability in establishing possible cause-effect relationship. Three  stimulus instruments and one response instrument titled “Pre-Primary Children  Basic Science Process Skills Rating Scale” (r = 0.73) was used to gather the data.  Data were analysed using descriptive statistic for demographic data and inferential  statistics (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of  significance. There was significant main effect of treatment on science process skills  2 (F = 108.71; p < 0.05; partial η = 0.78) of pre-primary children. Children exposed (2;60)  to indoor experiential learning had the highest science process skill mean score  (35.79) followed by those exposed to outdoor experiential learning (35.54) while  those exposed to conventional method had the lowest. Gender had no significant  main effect and there was no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on  science process skills of pre-primary children. Based on these findings, it was  recommended that Nigerian teachers and caregivers should adopt it in their  classroom interaction.