Impact of Inquiry-Based Learning on Biology Achievement: An Experimental Study of District Mardan

Abstract

This study investigates whether inquiry-based teaching might improve biology pupil achievement compared to lecture-based methods. For this purpose a true experimental design—a Pre-test, Post-test equivalent group design was used. The study compared experimental and control groups to determine how different biology methods of teaching affect student performance. Government secondary school boys in District Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, were the study's population registered in academic year 2020–2021. Eighty (80) students were randomly selected from these schools and assigned to experimental and control groups based on their prepared learning styles and academic achievement in Biology pre-test.

The study used the Learning Styles Test to categorize students by learning style and the Biology Achievement Test (BAT) for pre- and post-test evaluation. The experimental group used the 5E teaching paradigm for inquiry-based learning for eight weeks, while the control group got lecture-based training. Their biology topics were the same.

These results support the expanded use of inquiry-based teaching methodologies in secondary education to improve learning outcomes by showing that they improve Biology academic achievement across student demographics.