Evaluation of collaborative concept mapping on students' attitude in secondary schools in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Attitudinal aspects contribute positively to the overall student’s affective characteristics and influence the students’ achievement. The performance in Biology subjects in the Kenya National Examinations Council is below 55% and this has been attributed to the students' negative attitude towards science subjects. Past studies have indicated that the usage of concept maps has some positive attitudinal effects on students. Therefore, the study examined how computer-based collaborative concept mapping influences students’ attitudes towards biology in selected secondary schools in Uasin-Gishu County, Kenya. The study compared the concept mapping learning technique with the conventional teaching methods with the aid of Solomon Four-Group design. The population were form-two students from eight secondary schools; four boys’ and girls’ extra-county schools in Uasin-Gishu County, Kenya. The study had a total of 345 students; 167 in the experimental group and 178 in the control group. At the onset, the study measured the attitudes using a conventional tool. The experimental groups were taught using CMapTools software in the computer laboratories while the control group were taught using the conventional approach. After the end of the study period, both groups took a post-test questionnaire on attitudes towards Biology. The data generated were entered into statistical software and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (χ2 and t-test) at ά = 0.05. At the beginning of the experiment, the statistics; χ2 = 1.05 (p>0.05), and t = -0.820 (p > 0.05) for the attitudinal component items showed that there was no significant difference in attitudes between the groups. At the end of the experiment, the statistic t = 0.106 (p > 0.05) indicated that there were no significant differences in attitudes between the experimental groups. Thus, the attitudinal component of the two experimental groups was more or less similar. The study concluded that concept mapping has a significant effect on the students' attitudes. The study recommends that teachers should adopt and incorporate collaborative and computer-based systems in improving attitudes towards science education in Kenya.