Browsing by Author "Soyibo, Kola"

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    High school students' knowledge of nutrition and reproduction
    (1997) Soyibo, Kola; Dobson-Walters, Sonia; Jamaica. Mico Teachers' College
    This study sought to investigate the level of knowledge of nutrition and reproduction concepts shown by 522 students (253 9th graders and 269 11th graders, of whom 228 were male and 294 female, and 247 from rural and 275 from urban schools). The students were randomly selected by 10 traditional high schools from five parishes in Jamaica. Short, structured questions demanding open-ended responses were used for data collection. The results indicated that: 1) the students’ knowledge of the two concepts was low, mainly because of lack of knowledge, incomplete knowledge, and sociocultural beliefs; 2) the students’ knowledge improved with age in favour of the 11th graders whose misunderstandings were much less than the 9th graders; and 3) the females significantly outscored the males while the urban students had significantly better knowledge than their rural counterparts.
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    Measurement of some Jamaican high school students' levels of anxiety towards science
    (1992) Soyibo, Kola
    This study investigated the effects of grade level, gender, school location, number of science subjects studied, and science subject preference on levels of anxiety. The Zuckerman Affect Adjective Checklist was used to measure the anxiety levels of a sample of 313 students (149 boys and 164 girls), of whom 133 were Grade 9 and 180 were Grade 11 students) from two rural and four urban high schools in Jamaica. The findings revealed that: 1) the students fell into three anxiety level categories: (low 10.86 percent), average (78.60 percent), and high (10.54 percent); 2) rural students were significantly more anxious than urban ones; 3) Grade 11 and female students were slightly more anxious than Grade 9 and male students respectively; 4) students studying three science subjects were slightly less anxious than those studying one or two, and 5) students who preferred biology were less anxious than those who preferred either physics of chemistry.
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    Misleading labellings in biology textbook drawings
    (Jun. 1994) Soyibo, Kola;
    Drawings constitute one of the main categories of illustrations commonly used in biology textbooks to facilitate the effective teaching and learning of principles and concepts. In this study, six types of misleading labellings were identified in the drawings of 12 biology textbooks used in the English-speaking Caribbean by O' and A'Level students: 1) drawings in which a single structure is labelled as if it is more than one, 2) those with guidelines pointing to empty spaces, 3) labels without guidelines, 4) unlabelled, 5) incorrectly labelled, and 6) partially labelled drawings. The presence of these undesirable labellings in textbooks can mislead students into producing drawings with such labellings. Moreover, such labellings are likely to impede students' explicit understanding of the concepts of structure and function as well as adversely affect their general biological knowledge and understanding. The implications of the study's findings for biology education are highlighted