Improving activity-based teaching of plant classification: a focus on advanced level schools in Temeke and Ilala districts, Dar es salaam

The purpose of the study was to investigate if activity- based teaching improves students' achievement. A quasi-experimental research design was used to investigate effect relationship between two variables by making one group an experimental group and other group a control group. The test (pre-test and post-test) was administered to assess the differences in achievement between the two groups. The instruments used to collect data from the field were test scores (i.e. pre-test and post-test), questionnaires and interviews. Unpaired sample t -test was used to determine if activity-based lessons improve students' achievement. The study disclosed that there was an extremely significant difference in students' post-test achievement at p- value < 0.0001.This shows that, applying activities to teaching improves students' achievement. This finding confirmed the hypothesis which states that Integration of activity-based lessons in teaching plant classification improves students' achievement; therefore treatment had positively affected students' performance on the test. From this study it is recommended that teachers have to use activity-based teaching of plant classification since it is a student centered approach and stimulate active learning by doing.