Unlocking the Potency of Copy-Cover-Compare Strategy on Senior Secondary Students’ Spelling Skills in Biology: A Quantitative Analysis of Learning Outcomes

This study investigated the efficacy of the Copy-Cover-Compare (CCC) strategy in enhancing senior secondary students’ spelling skills in biology. It specifically looked into how students spelling deficiency in biology technical terms can be addressed using appropriate strategy to reduce cases of spelling errors and under-achievement in biology. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a pre-test, post-test, non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design with a sample of 94 senior secondary year two biology students in two intact classes drawn from two purposively sampled senior secondary schools in Educational District V, Lagos State. The experimental group had 43 students (24 males and 19 females) and the control group 51 students (29 males and 22 females). Treatment consisted of teaching biological concept (ecology) which included functioning ecosystem, population study, growth measurement and soil properties to the experimental group using copy-cover-compare strategy while the control group was taught using the traditional lecture method. The treatment lasted for five weeks. Biology Students’ Spelling Skills Test (BSSST) was used for data collection after subjected to both content and face validity, and with the reliability established using K-20 to yield a coefficient of 0.87. The research questions were answered with mean and standard deviation while the null hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed that students taught using copy-cover-compare strategy performed significantly better in terms of spelling skills learning outcome than those taught by the traditional lecture method [F(2,92)=28.9; P 0.05]. Consequently, no significant interaction effect of methods and gender on spelling skills of students was found [F(2,138)=.19; p>0.05]. The study concluded that the copy-cover-compare strategy enhanced senior secondary students spelling skills in biology and based on this finding, some recommendations were made to improve teaching and learning of biology and students proficiency at spelling ecological one-word technical terms to reduce errors in spelling.