ABSTRACT
This study investigated the effects of guided inquiry teaching method on self-efficacy and academic Achievement of Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) Integrated Science students in North-West geopolitical zone of Nigeria. All the NCE II Integrated Science students of the eleven (11) Colleges of Education in the area under study; totaling one thousand, two hundred and seven (1,207) were used as the population of the study. Two out of the eleven Colleges of Education in the area with their total number of 200 students were selected as the sample of the study using simple random sampling technique involving fish bowl method. The Colleges were labeled as experimental (i.e. FCE, Katsina) and control (i.e. IKCOE, Dutsin-ma) groups; and intact classes of the two Colleges were used. The experimental group was taught using guided inquiry teaching method while the control group was taught by lecture method. The instruments used for the study were NCE Students' Self-efficacy Questionnaire (NSSQ) with the reliability value of 0.96 and Integrated Science Achievement Test (ISAT) which has the reliability value of 0.69. Four research questions were stated; such as what is the effect of guided inquiry teaching method on the self-efficacy of NCE Integrated Science students?, and four corresponding hypotheses such as there is no significant difference in the mean academic achievement of NCE Integrated Science students exposed to guided inquiry teaching method and those exposed to lecture method were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The data collected were analyzed using t-test statistics at P < 0.05. The findings of the study showed that the guided inquiry teaching method used for the study has improved the self-efficacy and academic achievement of NCE Integrated Science students. However, neither male nor female NCE Integrated Science students performed significantly better than the other after their exposure to the method. One of the major recommendations made based on the findings of the study is that NCE teachers should undergo training through seminars/workshops and that activity-based teaching methods such as guided inquiry should be used in training/teaching them so that they can also be confident and efficient in using the methods when in class with their students.