The Interplay between Practical Activities and Students’ Performance in Tropism, Case of Musanze District Secondary Schools

Marie Aimee Uwera & Marcellin Rutegwa
College of Education (UR-CE), African Centre of Excellence for Innovative Teaching and Learning Mathematics and Science (ACEITLMS)
University of Rwanda
Email: uwerarwemabaho@gmail.com

Abstract: This study examined the interplay between practical activities and students’ performance in tropism, in Musanze district secondary schools, Rwanda. It identified a dominating teaching approach in teaching tropism and the impact of practical activities on students’ performance in tropism. As a quantitative study, it used purposive and stratified sampling to recruit a population of 19 Biology teachers and 177 students. For the teaching approaches used in teaching and learning of tropism, chalk and talk has a mean score of 2.80 compared to other approaches. “Laboratory method” is sometimes used also as it has a mean score of 2.60. About the effect of the practical activities on the students’ performance, the experimental group had significantly higher marks than the control group during the pre -test with a significant level of p < 0.05. Barriers that hinder the use of practical activities in teaching tropism include inadequate or lack of training/workshops in practical activities (SD: 1.069), lack of appropriate laboratory materials and equipment for tropism (SD: 1.759), and few hours provided by Rwandan curriculum in studying this lesson of tropism in advanced levels ( 1.457). The increase of the use of practical and laboratory activities in teaching biology, training or workshops of the teachers about practical activities, provision of the laboratory materials and equipment about tropism, and extension of the period time for teaching tropism on a curriculum will boost the understanding of the unit and performance of the students in biology.