Effect of Human-Centred Design (HCD) – Based Virtual Laboratory on Senior Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement in Biology

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of Human-Centred Design (HCD) based virtual laboratory on senior secondary school students’ academic achievement in Biology in Ijebu-Ode Local Government area of Ogun state, Nigeria. Three null hypotheses were tested in the study using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. The population comprised all Biology students in public senior secondary schools in Ijebu-Ode. The sample consisted of one hundred and thirty-nine (139) students. Data were collected using the Biology Achievement Test (BAT) and the Human-Centred Design form. Analysis was done using means, standard deviation, Analysis of Variance (ANCOVA) and Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA). Results showed a significant difference in academic achievement in favour of the experimental group (F (23.256) =, P<0.05). No significant difference was found between male and female students’ achievement after exposure to the instructional strategy (F(1.323) =, P>0.05), nor was there a significant interaction effect of instructional strategy and gender (F(0.452) =, P<0.05). The study concluded that virtual laboratories positively affect students' academic achievement in Biology and that educational tools should consider students' needs. It is recommended that government and school authorities should encourage virtual laboratory use and adopt the HCD approach in developing such resources.