What Effects Do Cognitive Reasoning Ability and Prior Exposure to Content have on Upper Basic Two Students’ Retention in Basic Science?

Aims: This study addressed the effects of cognitive reasoning ability and prior exposure to content on Upper Basic two (8th grader) students’ retention in Basic Science. This focus was necessitated by the persistent poor performance in science generally and inability to meet up with the 60:40 ratio in students’ admission into tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Study Design: The study utilized a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design; it was a non equivalent control group type.
Place and Duration of Study: Plateau state of Nigeria between April and June, 2012.
Methodology: The instruments that were used to collect data were Basic Science Achievement Test (BSAT) and Science Reasoning Tasks (SRT). The reliability of BSAT was determined using the Kuder Richardson 21(K-R21) formula and found to be 0.89 while that of SRT II using test retest approach was found to be 0.81.
Results: It was found that prior exposure of students to contents of basic science significantly improved retention. Similarly, knowledge retention of high and low reasoning ability level students significantly differed in favour of high ability students. The study also found that male and female basic science students exposed to content prior to instruction do not differ significantly in their knowledge retention. However, there was a significant interaction effect of method, sex and reasoning ability on students’ retention in basic science.
Conclusion and Recommendation: It can be concluded that prior exposure to content enhanced students’ retention and that high ability students retained more of science learnt compared to low ability student. Prior exposure to content favoured both male and female students’ retention. It is recommended that authors of methodology text books should include and explain carefully how prior knowledge of content can be used to enhance retention of learnt materials. Basic science teachers should be made to be aware of the relationship that exists between reasoning pattern of learners, conceptual demand of the school subject and the methods of teaching that will facilitate retention, among others.