Enhancing secondary school students’ knowledge and reflective thinking in genetics concepts using socio-scientific issue-based strategy

Genetics concepts (GCs) are taught to equip students with relevant knowledge and skills. However, reports have shown that students exhibited poor knowledge and reflective thinking in GCs. Therefore, this study, determined the effect of socio-scientific issue-based strategy (SsIbS) and scientific reasoning ability (SRA) on students’ content knowledge and reflective thinking in GCs in Oyo State, Nigeria. The pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design was used. 240 students participated in the study. Five instruments were used, while analysis of covariance was used to analyze collected data at p < 0.05. Main effect of treatment on student’ knowledge (F[1; 339]= 16.96; partial η²= 0.07) and reflective thinking (F[1;339]= 10.17; partial η²= 0.04) was significant. SRA had significant main effect on students’ knowledge (F[2;338]= 4.84; partial η²= 0.04) and reflective thinking (F[2;338]= 5.01; partial η²= 0.04). The SsIbS improved students’ learning outcomes in secondary school GCs in Oyo State, Nigeria. Biology teachers should adopt these strategies to teach GCs.