School administration and effective teaching methods in science education in North Central Nigeria

The study investigated the school administration and effective teaching methods in Science Education in Nigeria. Two objectives and research questions were raised and answered. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of the entire federal tertiary institutions in North Central Nigeria. A random sampling technique was adopted and Krejcie and Morgan (1970) method was used to determine the sample size of 330 undergraduate and college of education students. Fifty five students in each of the six selected tertiary institutions was sampled. The instrument used was tagged: “Effective Teaching Methods in Learning Science Education Concepts (ETMLSEC)”, with a four point scale of Most Effective Teaching Methods (4 points), More Effective Teaching Methods (3 points), Effective Teaching Methods (2 points) and Not Effective Teaching Methods (1 point). Mean (x̅) was used to analyse the research question, and Standard Deviation used to find out the extent in which scores in the distribution clustered around the means. The findings of the study revealed that students enjoyed different teaching methods in Science Education as lecturers endeavour to make their classes interesting by using appropriate methods to teach a particular concept in science. Based on these findings, the following were recommended among others: Teachers and/or Lecturers should be encouraged to try using different teaching methods and approaches to teach science subjects as it helps learners know their preferred learning method(s).