Abstract:
Many studies have been conducted to assess the effect of discovery learning on students' achievement in science. On the bases of the conflicting findings, the task of arriving at a general conclusion about the effect of discovery learning relative to the traditional science learning has been difficult. This study was designed therefore, to integrate quantitatively the collective research dealing with the effect of discovery learning on student achievement in science using the procedures of Meta-analysis. Seven research question and one hypothesis guided the study. The studies utilized in this analysis were identified by a process that included a systematic screening of journal articles, dissertations, conference papers, Master degree project reports that were conducted in thc field of science education in secondary schools in Nigeria between 1980-1997. A coding instrurncnt was developed, validated and used in the recording of the features of each study. These features were divided into the following six major categories; design of study; study context characteristics; students characteristics; outcome features; effect size calculations and area of study Studies which contained data for the calculation of the effect size were coded. The main effect size calculated for this meta-analysis study was 0.61 standard deviation units. This implied that for all the samples of study result that were considered the discovery learning on the average, resulted in 0.61 standard deviations better performance than the traditional methods. The other study features were cross tabulated with effect size and the result showed that the magnitude of effect size varied with some study features like design of study, duration of study, class size among others and did not vary with class level, gender, or school type. Based on the findings of the study some recommendations were made by researcher
