ABSTRACT
The study investigated Impactof Collaborative Strategy on Retention and Performance in Ecology Concepts among Concrete and Formal Reasoning ability Students in Zaria Kaduna State. A sample of 60 students drawn from a population of 1,642 using simple random sampling techniques were used for the study. Quasi-experimental control group design was adopted involving pretest, post-test and post-posttest.Two instruments were used GALTs and EPT duly validated by experts with reliability coefficient of(r) 0.85 and 0.65 respectively were used for the data collected. One of the research questions raised was(1) what is the difference between the mean scores of concrete and formal operational students taught ecology concepts using collaborative teaching strategy and their counterparts taught using lecture method? One of the research hypotheses raised was there is no significant difference between the academic performance of concrete and formal operational students taught using collaborative strategy and those exposed to lecture method. The null hypotheses were analysed using ANOVA, t-test and Dunnett statistics at p≤ 0.05 level of significance. The findings from the study revealed that i) Collaborative learning strategy significantly improved the academic performance of formal and concrete ability students exposed to it. ii) Collaborative strategy is gender friendly as it enhanced meaningful learning and performance in both gender iii) Collaborative strategy significantly improved the performance of ecology students exposed to it. Based on the findings, the collaborative learning is efficacious in eliminating gender related differences in teaching and learning science, indicating that the strategy is gender friendly also ecology concepts are retained when collaborative strategy was used as medium of instruction to teach both formal and concrete reasoning ability students. The researcher recommended among others that: Workshops, seminars and conferences should be organised for Biology teachers on the use of Collaborative Instructional Strategy in secondary schools.