Assessing the Observation Skills of Biology Students in Selected Senior High Schools in the Eastern Region of Ghana

The purpose of the study was to determine whether Senior High School Form 3 Biology students have the skills of observation. The study adopted “Basic Skills Assessment” approach or method. One public/government science school offering biology was selected randomly and one private science school offering biology was also selected purposively for this study. A task was developed for assessing the observation skills of biology students at SHS 3. The research questions were answered using the Mann-Whitney U-test. The results indicated that students (both males and females) were performing at similar levels in the skill of observation. A look at the mean ranks indicates that even though the males scored higher than the females, the difference was not statistically significant. Students from the private schools performed significantly better than the students from the public school on the skill of observation. It was recommended that students from public school should be made to do more practical activities that involve observation to improve upon their observation skills.