ABSTRACT

This study was designed to investigate the perceived influence of use of laboratory facilities in Biology teaching and students' academic achievement in Umuahia North Local Government. A survey research designed was used for the study. Four research questions guided the study. The population of the study was made up of 1273 public senior secondary school students in S. S. 2 offering biology. The sample comprised 295 students. The sample was drawn from the selected local government Area in Abia State. A 20 item questionnaire was designed using the likert scale model and validated by the researcher supervisor and two experts in the unit of measurement and evaluation, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, umudike. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Pearson Product moment statistics which yielded a coefficient of 0.72. This was administered to a simple randomi7ed sample of two hundred and ninety five students drawn from a population of one thousand two hundred and seventy three from one local government in the study area. All the research questions were analyzed using mean scores, and cluster mean scores. The results of the analyzed data revealed that the use of laboratory facilities in teaching Biology influence student's academic achievement, adequate implementation and provision of laboratory facilities promote effective teaching in Biology and lack of practical lesson timetable allocation and difficulties in using some of the available laboratory facilities are the major problems encountered during practical lessons in science laboratory. Based on these finding it was recommended that there should be allocation of timetable for practical lesson in Biology to promote practical teaching and effective use of laboratory facilities and the school should always provide enough specimens during practical lesson in order to encourage students' participation in practical Biology teaching.