Interactive Effect of Gender and Two Teaching Strategies On Pre-Service Teachers' Performance in Basic Science in Nigerian Colleges of Education

The study investigated interactive effect of gender and teaching strategies (Reflective Teaching, Peer Tutoring and Conventional Teaching) on the performance of pre-service teachers in Basic Science. The study adopted pre-test and post-test control group quasi-experimental design. The population of the study consisted of all pre-service teachers studying Basic Science as teaching subject in all the 12 public Colleges of Education in Southwest, Nigeria. The sample for the study consisted of 124 pre-service teachers of Basic Science from the three selected Colleges of Education in Southwest, Nigeria through multistage sampling procedure. Pre-service Teachers’ Achievement Test in Basic Science (PTATBS) was used for data collection and divided into two sections A and B. The face and content validity of PTATBS was ensured by experts of Basic Science. The method of split-half was used to establish the reliability coefficient 0.81 for PTATBS as administered on 40 pre-service teachers outside the sampled area. The experimental procedure was in three phases. Inferential statistics of two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the formulated hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the performance of the pre-service teachers exposed to Reflective Teaching, Peer Tutoring and Conventional Teaching was not influenced by their gender. The use of Reflective Teaching and Peer Tutoring instructional strategies should be encouraged in teaching pre-service teachers of Basic Science in Colleges of Education to enhance their professional skills since the strategies are not gender biased. Keywords: Basic Science, Gender, Peer Tutoring, Performance, Pre-service Teachers, Reflective