UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ SCIENCE PROCESS SKILLS AS PREDICTOR OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN SCIENCE EDUCATION COURSES

<doi>10.24250/jpe/si/2025/OMC/AEE/NHO/UVA/EDU/</doi>

Abstract

In a quest to determine if science process skills significantly
influence academic achievement in undergraduate science
education courses, this study examined undergraduate
students’ science process skills as predictor of academic
achievement in science education courses. Two research
questions guided the study while two hypotheses were
tested at 0.05 alpha level. The predictive correlation
survey design was adopted. The population of the study
comprised 2720 undergraduate science education
department students in Anambra State, Nigeria. A Sample
size of 408 undergraduate science education students were
drawn using 15% of total population in the study (2720) as
postulated by Nworgu in Abumchukwu et al.,(2024b).
Undergraduate Students Science Process Skills Scale
(USSPSS) and 2023/2024 academic session average scores
of undergraduate students’ science education courses were
instruments used for data collection. The instruments were
validated by three experts. The reliability of the USSPSS
was established using Cronbach alpha method and reliability coefficients of 0.73 was found. The two
instruments were used as a method for data collection.
Coefficient R and R2 were used to answer research
questions while regression ANOVA (linear and multiple)
were used to test the hypotheses. The findings from the
results revealed that a low positive predictive value exist
between Undergraduate students’ science process skills
(USSPS) and their academic achievement in science
education courses. However, undergraduate science
process skills (USSPS) is not a significant predictor of the
students’ academic achievement in science education
courses. More so, a low positive predictive value exist
between undergraduate students’ science process skills
(USSPS) and the students’ academic achievement as
moderated by gender in science education courses. Thus,
undergraduate science process skill is not a significant
predictor of the academic achievement of male and female
undergraduate students in science education courses. From
the findings, recommendations and conclusions were made.