A CRITICAL SURVEY OF TASK SIZE AND ITS EFFECT ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN BIOLOGY

ABSTRACT: The National Policy on Education emphasizes the importance of task on the academic achievement of students and mandates that the final grading of a learner in any course of study must take into account all their performances over a period of time. The problem of the practice of assigning task to students and how it affects their academic achievement calls for attention. Therefore, this research work is aimed at determining the effect of task size on the students’ achievement in Biology in Ushongo Local Government Area of Benue State of Nigeria. The target population for the study comprised all the Biology students in senior secondary schools in Ushongo Local Government Area of Benue State. All students who offer Biology in Ushongo Local Government Area of Benue State constituted the population. The quasi-experimental design was chosen and used for this study. It employed the simple and non-tedious; and bulky and tedious control group. The sample consisted of 70 senior secondary (SS II) students from two classes (35 in each class) of the two selected schools in Ushongo Local Government Area. Schools were chosen by probability sampling (balloting: withdrawal-replacement procedure).  The sample for the study is drawn by random Sample technique. Mean and standard deviation was used for answering the research questions. Analysis of covariance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The results show that the group taught with high task size achieve higher in their achievement test. This research work has serious implications for biology teachers, teacher trainers, curriculum developers, and other stakeholders in biology education.