Assessing The Impact of Cooperative and Individualistic Instructional Strategies On the Computer Science Learning Outcomes of Senior Secondary School Students

A thorough analysis of the current trend in classroom practices reveals that the teacher-centered approach—which favors rote learning over meaningful learning—is the most popular one. The development of a true understanding of computer science and, by extension, scientific concepts, has not been achieved through this type of education; as a result, student performance in internal and external exams continues to be subpar. The hunt for a strategy that will encourage student activity and engagement hasn't stopped. Therefore, this study evaluates how senior secondary school students learning results in computer science are affected by cooperative and individualistic instructional styles. A non-randomization pretest, posttest, and control group quasi-experimental research design was used in the study. The target audience for the study was the entire public Secondary School Computer Science One (SSS 1) student body in the Ikere Ekiti LGA, and the sample of the study consisted of 180 individuals from senior secondary school one (SSS 1) classes that were intact. The study's instrument was the 50-item Computer Achievement Test (CAT), which the researcher designed. The study was guided by four research questions and four research hypotheses. The mean and standard deviation were used to provide descriptive answers to the study's questions, and a student's t-test, Chi-Square, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with an alpha-level coefficient of 0.05 were used to assess the hypotheses. The study's findings revealed that, of all the three strategies employed, the cooperative strategy was the most effective at enhancing computer science cognition. The results of this study also show that there is no discernible difference in achievement between same-gender and mixed-gender schools. Finally, this study shows a strong link between individualistic and cooperative educational approaches. It is therefore recommended that teachers and students should both get frequent training on cooperative learning ideas, processes, and guidelines in light of these findings. Keywords: Cooperative Strategy, Individualistic Strategy, Computer Science, Learning Outcomes, Secondary School