ABSTRACT

The study investigated the effect of cooperative and competitive learning strategies on academic achievement of secondary school physics students in Abia State. Six research questions were developed and answered and six null hypotheses were formulated and tested for the study. Quasi-experimental research design that involved experimental groups and control group was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 1437 students made up of all the 2018/2019 Senior Secondary (SSI) Physics students in Umuahia Education zone of Abia State. A sample size of 129 Senior Secondary School physics students was drawn from the population of Umuahia education zone involving three intact classes using Simple random sampling technique and purposive sampling technique. Instrument used for this study was Physics Achievement Test (PAT) which consists of fifty (50) multiple choice questions adapted from West African Examination Council (WAEC). It was subjected to face and content validation by three experts in the Department of Science Education, one in Physics Education and two experts in Measurement and Evaluation, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The reliability of PAT was determined using Kuder-Richardson 20, which yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.76. Data collected through the administration of the instruments were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.The major findings of the study is that both cooperative and competitive learning strategies are effective teaching methods but secondary school physics students achieved better with competitive learning strategy. Based on the findings, it was recommended that competitive learning strategy was superior over cooperative learning mode and should be used by teachers to facilitate learning. That physics teachers should make competitive learning and cooperative learning strategies fundamental part of their teaching.