School Location and Acquisition of Science-Technology-Society Literacy among Secondary School Science Students

Abstract

The study was designed to determine the influence of school location on the level of Science-Technology-Society (STS) literacy of secondary school science students. The study was carried out in Ogoja Education Zone of Cross River State, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive survey design. A total of 1,200 senior secondary school science students drawn by stratified random sampling technique were used as sample. Two research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study. The instrument for data collection was a 40-item Science-Technology-Society Literacy Scale (STSLS) developed by the researcher. this was validated by experts and reliability co-efficient using Cronbach Alpha was found to be 0.79. Data collected were analysed using mean and t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that urban secondary school science students indicated significantly higher level of STS literacy than their rural counterparts in the identified STS literacy clusters. The study therefore recommended amongst others that teachers should always strive to adopt the STS literacy approach in the teaching of science and technology. Also, conscious efforts should be made to ensure that equal opportunities are given to all students irrespective of their school locations, in terms of encouragement and provision of teaching and learning resources for the realization of enhanced performance.