Future career interest in science, gender and students’ acquisition of science process skills in basic science in Oyo state, Nigeria

This study examined the effects of future career interest in science and gender, both used as moderator variables, on students’ acquisition of science process skills when taught Basic Science with simulated laboratory and enriched laboratory guide material experiments. It adopted the pretest-posttest control group quasi experimental design with a 3x2x2 factorial matrix. Participants in the study included 277 (130 males, 147 females; ± 17years) junior secondary three students randomly selected from six purposively chosen secondary schools based on existence of functional computer and physics laboratories. Science process skills test in Basic Science (r = 0.72) and Future career interest in science questionnaire (r = 0.99) were used to collect the data which were processed using analysis of covariance and estimated marginal means in order to test three null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Future career interest in science had a significant effect on students’ science process skills acquisition in Basic Science while there was none for gender nor interaction effect between future career interest in science and gender. Thus, students’ acquisition of science process skills depends largely on future career interest in science which determines effective participation in Basic Science activities especially laboratory experiments. It is recommended that teachers are acquainted with students’ future career interest in science and utilize same to encourage effective participation in Basic Science practical. This could assist students in acquiring science process skills needed to experience and practice science for better performance in biology, chemistry and physics at the post-basic education level in Nigeria.