Effect of Differentiated Instructional Approach on Learners' Participation and Academic Achievement in Biology in Public Secondary Schools in Mbeere North Sub-County, Kenya

Secondary school education forms the academic foundation for the acquisition of knowledge in higher institutions. Science Education is the bedrock for technological advancement in Kenya and the world at large. Biology is a key science subject and forms the foundation of various fields; therefore, it is an essential discipline. The performance of students in Biology has generally been low for the last few years. The ordinary Conventional Instructional Approach used by teachers in increasingly diverse classrooms may have contributed to the minimal performance. This study aimed to assess the effect of the Differentiated Instructional Approach (DIA) on Learner Participation and Academic Achievement in Biology in Public Secondary Schools. Quasi-Experimental Research Design was used in particular, Solomon Four Control Group Design. The target population was 2405 form two Biology students. Purposive sampling was used to select 8 Co-educational County Secondary Schools with a sample size of 360 students. Simple random sampling was used to select and assign the participating schools to Experimental and Control groups. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data, while the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 26 was used for data analysis. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference in all three hypotheses, with the first objective giving (F117.220, p<0.05), the second objective giving (F 54.049, p ˂ 0.05) while the third objective gave (F 65.417, p < 0.05) significant values. The results indicated that learners subjected to the Differentiated Instructional Approach did better than those instructed using Conventional Teaching Approaches. The study also concluded that DIA improved learners' Participation and Academic Achievement. The findings of this study would be significant to curriculum developers, educators, administrators and will also contribute to the knowledge base for the Differentiated Instructional Approach, forming the basis for further research