Secondary school teachers' and students' perceptions of teaching-learning activities used in biology classrooms

Description

The data on teachers' and students' perceptions of teaching-learning activities used in Zambian secondary school biology classrooms were collected between February and May 2022 using two separate survey questionnaires administered to 57 secondary school biology teachers and 469 students. Both instruments were five-point Likert-scale questionnaires. The data includes respondents' gender and their responses to statements on teaching-learning activities used in biology classrooms. Respondents (subjects) indicated the degree to which they agreed with 26 teaching-learning activities related to (a) students' prior knowledge and misconceptions, (b) making teaching/learning easy, (c) biology curriculum, (d) teaching strategies, and (d) representations and analogies. The responses ranged from strongly disagree (1), representing disagreement/negative perception, to strongly agree (5), representing agreement/positive perception. Therefore, 1 and 2 represent disagreement/negative perception, 3 represents neutral perception, while 4 and 5 represent agreement/positive perception. The dataset is accompanied by an Excel file named "Dateset on teachers’ and students’ perceptions of biology teaching-learning activities" with three sheets: Sheet 1 (Questionnaire), Sheet 2 (Raw data), and Sheet 3 (Analysed data). The data were analysed using SPSS version 25, and the results suggest significant differences between teachers' and students' perceptions about teaching-learning activities used in biology classrooms.

Steps to reproduce

The data on teachers' and students' perceptions of teaching-learning activities used in Zambian biology classrooms were collected using five-point Likert-scale survey questionnaires administered to 57 biology teachers and 469 students from selected secondary schools. Respondents indicated the degree to which they agreed with statements about 26 teaching-learning activities related to (a) students' prior knowledge and misconceptions, (b) making teaching/learning easy, (c) biology curriculum, (d) teaching strategies, and (d) representations and analogies. The respondents/subjects were coded as 1 student 2 - teachers. Respondents' gender was coded as 1 - female and 2 - male. On the other hand, the responses were coded as follows: 1 - strongly disagree, 2 - disagree, 3 - undecided, 4 - agree, and 5 - strongly agree. Therefore, 1 and 2 represent disagreement/negative perception, 3 represents neutral perception, while 4 and 5 represent represent agreement/positive perception. The questionnaires were pilot-tested, and analysis yielded Cronbach's alpha values of 0.842 for the students' questionnaire and 0.896 for the teachers' questionnaire, indicating high internal consistency. Teachers took about 15 minutes to complete the questionnaires, while students took 20 minutes.

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