INVESTIGATION OF AVAILABILITY AND USABILITY OF LABORATORY RESOURCES IN THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN LAGOS STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the availability and usability of Biology laboratory resources
in senior secondary school in Lagos State. The study adopted descriptive survey
research design. The population for the study comprised of all Biology teachers in
senior secondary schools in Lagos State. The study adopted a multistage sampling
procedure in selecting sample for the study. One senatorial district was selected from
the state using simple random sampling technique and one local government area
was selected from the state using simple random sampling technique. Twenty (20)
senior secondary schools in the local government were carefully selected using
simple random sampling technique. From each selected school, one Biology teacher
was selected using simple sampling technique. One research instrument titled
''Availability and Utilization of Laboratory Resources'' (AULR) was used for the
data collection. The data collected were analysed using frequency and percentage.
The result showed that 75.0% of the teachers affirmed that laboratory resources
were readily available in the school in the study area. Furthermore, the result showed
that 65.0% of the available laboratory resources were frequently used, 20.0% of the
available laboratory resources were fairly used while 15.0%of the available
laboratory resources were not used. Lastly, the result showed that there were
challenges associated with the utilization of Biology laboratory resources in senior
secondary schools in the study area with cluster mean of 2.59 that was found to be
above the criterion mean of 2.50. It is recommended that laboratory resources should be readily made available for the teaching of Biology in senior secondary
schools by the government and also for privately owned secondary schools.