Pixel International Conferences

Studies show that students exposed to traumatic experiences, such as, ethno-religious conflicts and terrorism experience difficulties which hinder their achievement in school. Science education plays a significant role in the socio-economic and technological development of any nation. So, anything that   interferes with its effective teaching and learning, truncates national and sustainable development. Nigeria as a developing nation needs an abundant and science educated workforce to keep pace with advances in science and technology locally and globally. Innovation will also be enhanced by expanding participation of individuals in science education. This is why the national policy on education emphasizes  the provision of science education to its citizenry at all levels of education in the country irrespective of any real or imagined differences [3]. It will also expand the social and economic opportunities of individuals from disadvantaged groups [1] such as students in troubled regions of northern Nigeria. Studying students’ coping strategies and anxiety is important because they are seen as strong factors in achievement outcomes of vulnerable students. Moreover, research evidence has shown that socio-cultural factors play a critical role in limited human diversity found in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields [2]. However, the extent to which each of these factors affects achievement in school subjects in difficult situations does not appear to have been established. This study therefore sets out to investigate coping strategies, anxiety, gender and science achievement of college students in North East of Nigeria which has been exposed to terrorism for about six years.  Five research questions and three hypotheses will be used to guide the study. An ex post- facto research design will be employed in this study. The instruments for data collection are an anxiety rating scale (ARS), a Coping Strategies Rating Scale (CSRS) and Students’ Examination Scores in Environment Concepts Test (SESECT). The Coping Strategies Rating Scale is adapted from Conor-Davidson Resilience Scale with 25 items while the Anxiety Scale is adopted from Zung Self Anxiety Rating Scale with 24 items. The validity of the instruments will be determined by experts in tests and measurement, educational psychology and science education in the Faculty of Education, University of Jos, Nigeria. The internal consistencies of the instruments will be determined with the Cronbach alpha method. Descriptive statistics, namely, frequencies, means and standard deviations will be used to answer the research questions while inferential statistics, namely, ANOVA, t-test and multiple regression will be used to test the hypotheses. The implications of the findings of the study for science instruction will be discussed and recommendations made on the basis of the findings.