Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, East Java, Indonesia
JPBI (Jurnal Pendidikan Biologi Indonesia)
p-ISSN 2442-3750, e-ISSN 2537-6204 // Vol. 7 No. 3 November 2021, pp. 258-266
10.22219/jpbi.v7i3.16249 http://ejournal.umm.ac.id/index.php/jpbi jpbi@umm.ac.id 258
Research Article
Colleges of education science student engagement in
Emergency Remote Teaching amidst COVID-19 in
Nigeria
Bello Ganiyu a,1,*
a Department of Science Education, Faculty of Education, University of Ilorin, P.M.B 1515, Ilorin, Nigeria
1 bello.g@unilorin.edu.ng
* Corresponding author
INTRODUCTION
Education has been widely acknowledged to be a potential tool for sustainable growth and development in
every facet of the society. Indeed, the mandate of the education industry is to advance the frontiers of knowledge,
socioeconomic transformation, wealth creation, poverty reduction, employment generation, and so forth (Griffin
& Care, 2015). This has also been occurred in Nigeria to become a free and democratic society, a just and
egalitarian society, a united, strong and self-reliant nation, a great and dynamic economy and a land full of
opportunities for all citizens. It is obvious that the Nation relies on education sector for nation building in addition
to sustainable socio-economic development. To achieve its mandate, education industry relies on teachers to
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history
Received: 13 April 2021
Revised: 31 May 2021
Accepted: 13 November 2021
Published: 14 November 2021
There is paucity of studies on the affective, behavioural, and cognitive dimensions of
student engagement under Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) during COVID-19
pandemic, especially among pre-service science teachers in Colleges of Education in
Nigeria. The purpose of this descriptive survey study was to examine the affective,
behavioural, cognitive, and general level of engagement of pre-service science teachers
in Colleges of Education in Kwara State, Nigeria in online ERT class. Purposive and
snowballing sampling techniques were used to select six education colleges and 241
students which participated in the study respectively. The reliability coefficient of the
online questionnaire used for data collection in the study was 0.81. The data gathered in
this study were analysed using mean and independent t-test. The findings indicated that
the level of student general engagement was high and there was significant gender
difference in the levels of student behavioural engagement (X2(2) = 7.561, p = 0.023<
.05) in favour of male students. It was concluded that Colleges of Education students’
level of affective, behavioural, cognitive, and general engagement in ERT was high. The
researcher recommended that students should extend their high level of general
engagement in online ERT class to face-to-face classes after COVID-19 pandemic.
Copyright © 2021, Bello
This is an open-access article under the CC–BY-SA license
Keywords
Colleges of education
COVID-19 pandemic
Emergency Remote Teaching
Student engagement
Science students
How to cite: Ganiyu, B. (2021). Colleges of education science student Engagement in Emergency Remote Teaching amidst COVID-
19 in Nigeria. JPBI (Jurnal Pendidikan Biologi Indonesia), 7(3), 258-266. https://doi.org/10.22219/jpbi.v7i3.16249
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embark teaching and research (Adeyemo, 2010; Rokhman et al., 2017). It is thus, important for policy makers to
place premium value on teacher education (Shen et al., 2009).
Education quality is believed as a crucial issue worldwide. However, in recent time, the quality of education
in Nigeria has come under public scrutiny due to unsatisfactory performance of students in public examinations.
Moreover, the high rate of declination enrolment in science subject (Aina & Ayodele, 2018) has been the
undergirding reason for this public distrust. Stakeholders believe that the education quality has fallen below its
standard. It has undergone progressive drop in the last two decades which resulted on student migration to other
nations for better quality education. Indeed, Nigerian education was ranked the 124th position in the world and
the 25th in Africa. Moreover, the literature accessed by Nigerian student in science subjects are unsatisfactory
(Abimbola, 2013).
The trend of secondary school students’ enrolment and performance in science subjects in the last decade
showed that biology was the most popular science subjects among Nigerian students compare to Chemistry and
Physics (The West African Examination Council, 2019). Enhancing student engagement in large classes often
present enormous challenges (Barghaus et al., 2017). However, enrolment in biology is on downward trend in
contrast to the upward enrolment trend in chemistry and physics. Also, the performances of students fluctuate
with biology lagging behind chemistry and physics yearly. The trend of students’ enrolment in science subjects
at secondary school level has been observed to be the same with enrolment pattern in science teacher education
especially at College level (Aina & Ayodele, 2018). According to the aforementioned researchers, the student
number enrolled for biology in Colleges was higher than chemistry and physics. Hence, it behoove teacher
educators to continuously focus their researches on how to improve student achievement (Sunday & Kola, 2014)
and particularly on the quality of science teacher education programme. In view of the robust linkage between
learning outcome and student engagement, it is imperative to improve both in-service and pre-service science
teachers’ level of engagement in the programme to ensure the production of high quality science teachers. In
this direction, several studies have been conducted on student engagement as part of efforts to enhance learning
outcome and quality education (Barghaus et al., 2017).
Student engagement has been indicated by student interest, and attention in learning activities in terms of
curiosity, optimism, and passion. Students with high level of engagement often have high level of self-esteem
and socially appropriate behaviours. This engagement arise from the realization of the sturdy impacts of cognitive,
psychological, physical, social and behavoural factors on student learning and social development processes.
Singh and Srivastava (2014) argued that students’ engagement is characterize by their strong connections with
the institution, learning, and development experiences. Not only are they motivated by getting engaged, but they
are also, passionate, curious, and ready for academic and institutional activities. Hence, they regularly partake
in collaborative learning activities by reading, discussion, working on projects, in addition to preparing for tests
and examinations. Engaged students often display a high sense of belonging to the institution and feels proud to
be active participants in institutional activities. In contrast, disengaged students often bring disruptions into the
class and are even more problematic than the low achieving students (Spruit & Joosten, 2019). However, one of
the huge teachers’ challenges often encountered in the class is student engagement.
Acknowledging the crucial point of student engagement, reserachers focused their study on this matter. Some
of them observed the differences of the engagement based on gender (Havik & Westergård, 2020; Teoh et al.,
2013; Tison et al., 2011) and age. Meanwhile, some of them chose behaviour (Mohiuddin et al., 2018), affective,
and cognitive (Ayub et al., 2017) as the objects observed.
In addition to the obstacles of student engagement cultivation challenges, student academic engagement in
regular face-to-face class setting was abruptly interrupted by the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in the
last quarter of 2019. Globally, all education systems were shut down due to the minimization of social interaction
to prevent the spread of the pandemic. Therefore, distance education started in the form of online Emergence
Remote Teaching (ERT). However, problems were encountered in student participation in online distance
education such as students inconvenience in attending online classes (Aguilera-Hermida, 2020; Knudson, 2020),
the negative impact on student engagement (Perets et al., 2020), the additional responsibility on parents and
siblings in terms of learning management, ERT accessibility, and students motivation (Garbe et al., 2020), as
well as increasing and changing teachers’ workload.
In view of the fact that under the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, ERT became the predominant mode of
instructional delivery globally. Having utilizing this mode, educators are still assessing its merits and failures
(Perets et al., 2020). In addition, the former researchers also investigated various points related to ERT such as
technological issues in delivering laboratory content (Gares et al., 2020), students’ perception (Shin & Hickey,
2021; Tang et al., 2020). Although, gradually a clear pattern of students’ perceptions, attitudes, experiences, and
challenges in online ERT mode of instructional delivery is emerging from literature, a lucid pattern of student
engagement level in online ERT amidst COVID-19 pandemic is yet to emerge.
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Therefore, this study aimed at observing the level of student engagement among pre-service science
teachers of Education Colleges in terms of affective, behaviour, and cognitive domains as well as in general way.
The findings of this research will contribute to fulfill the paucity of studies which focused on student engagement
under ERT mode of instructional delivery in the mist of COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this can be the basic
information as considerations for policy makers in education field.
METHODS
The descriptive-survey research design was adopted in conducting this study to describe general or specific
behaviors and attributes of population. In this study, large data were collected and analysed to identify, measure,
and describe student engagement level among pre-service science teachers in Education Colleges. Therefore,
the researcher considered the descriptive survey design to be appropriate for this study.
Pre-service teachers in Colleges of Education in Kwara State were the population of this study. Purposive
sampling method was used to select all the six Colleges of Education in Kwara State that switched over to the
online ERT lectures during the COVID-19 pandemic school lockdown and students were mandated to stay-at-
home. Snowball sampling technique was used to select 241 pre-service science teachers who completed the
online questionnaire in the six selected Colleges of Education in Kwara State within a period of six weeks.
The research instrument used for data collection in this study was a questionnaire entitled Colleges of
Education Student Engagement Questionnaire (COESEQ) which was adapted from Maroco et al. (2016). There
were only four sections in the questionnaire .Section A sought for the biodata of the students, while sections B,
C, and D sought for the level of the students’ affective, behavioural, and cognitive engagement respectively.
There were five items in each sections of B, C, and D. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was calculated
with Cronbach alpha in which the value was 0.81.
The instrument (COESEQ) was administered online using Google Form. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
for the online questionnaire was made available for science students through the research assistant in each of
the six purposively selected Colleges of Education that switched over to online ERT during COVID-19 pandemic.
The science students were encouraged by the research assistants to share the URL with other science students
(snowball sampling) who were taking lectures through the online ERT in their college and colleagues in other
Colleges of Education in Kwara State that adopted online ERT.
The data extracted from the completed online COESEQ on Google Form were subjected for descriptive and
inferential statistical analyses. Specifically, response to each item in Sections B, C, and D was scored on 4-Point
Likert Scale viz: always (4), sometimes (3), rarely (2), and never (1). The mean score of less than 2.00 was
considered to be low engagement level, while those which between 2.00 and 3.00 indicated moderate
engagement level, and the mean score above 3.00 was considered to be high engagement level.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The data gathered in this study were subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses aided
using SPSS version 21 software. The results of the analyses were presented in tables. The student affective
engagement level through online ERT class during COVID-19 pandemic is determined based on their
responses to the items in section B of the COESEQ. The analysis results of the responses are served in Table
1.
Table 1. Tha analysis results of student affective engagement level
Item N Sum Mean Std. Deviation
My Emergency Remote Teaching class is an interesting place to be 241 826 3.43 .727
I am interested in the Emergency Remote Teaching class works 241 824 3.42 .782
I feel excited about the Emergency Remote Teaching class works 241 799 3.32 .885
I like being at Emergency Remote Teaching class 241 792 3.29 .815
I don’t feel very accomplished at Emergency Remote Teaching class lessons 241 720 2.99 .864
Aggregate Mean Score 3.29
Based in Table 1, it can be clearly seen that the mean scores were in the range of 2.99 to 3.43 while the
aggregate mean score was 3.29. Notwithstanding that the lowest mean value was 2.99, yet the aggregate mean
score was within the range of high level of engagement. Hence, it can be stated that the student affective
engagement level was considered to be high in the online ERT class during the COVID-19 pandemic.
These results suggested that the students were emotionally excited to resume academic activities through
online ERT class when educational institutions were lockdown for several months to prevent further spread of
COVID-19 pandemic. Such favourable emotional disposition might have enhanced students’ interest in online
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ERT lectures, thereby led to the observed high level of affective engagement. The results were a tell-tale sign
that the students most likely found the online ERT class as an interesting place to learn. They became
enthusiastic to complete class works, developed feeling of connectedness with online ERT as well as feeling of
learning accomplishment. In addition, the absence of school environment stressors in online ERT mode of
instruction might equally be a contributor to the students’ high level of affective engagement. The result was
consistent with several previous findings. Ayub et al. (2017) reported that student affective engagement during
online classes tended to be at moderate level.
Furthermore, in term of gender difference, the level of student affective engagement in online ERT class
during COVID-19 pandemic was tested using Independent Samples t-Test. The results of the test are served
in Table 2.
Table 2. Independent samples t-test resuts for student affective engagement Level
Levine’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means
Affective
engagement
F Sig. t df
Sig.
(2-tailed)
Mean
difference
Std. error
difference
95% confidence
interval of the
difference
Lower Upper
Equal variances
assumed
.798 .372 .239 .239 .811 .094 .393 -.679 .867
Equal variances
not assumed
.252 166.350 .801 .094 .373 -.642 .830
Table 2 shows that the results of the Levene’s test for equality of variances revealed that the mean variances
between male and female were not significantly different (p = 0.37). Meanwhile, the t-test result showed that
there was no significant difference in the level of student affective engagement in online ERT class during
COVID-19 pandemic based on gender [t(0.239)=0.239, p > 0.05].
Students’ behavioral engagement in online ERT class during COVID-19 pandemic was also observed in this
study. This indicator was determined by analyzing students’ responses on section C of the COESEQ. The
analysis results of the indicator are served in Table 3.
Table 3. The analysis results of student behavioural engagement level
Item N Sum Mean Std. deviation
I followed the rules in the Emergency Remote Teaching class 241 866 3.59 .659
I paid attention during Emergency Remote Teaching class lessons 241 839 3.48 .731
I usually participated actively in group assignments during Emergency Remote
Teaching class lessons
241 829 3.44 .820
I usually do homework given during Emergency Remote Teaching class lessons 241 812 3.37 .890
When I have doubted, I asked questions and participated in debates/discussions in
Emergency Remote Teaching class lessons
241 778 3.23 .895
Aggregate Mean Score 3.42
Table 3 depicts that the mean scores ranged from 3.23 to 3.59, while the aggregate mean score was 3.42.
As the aggregate mean score was greater than 3.00, this means that student behavioural engagement level
was considered to be high. In other words, the students actively participated in learning activities such as
assignment completions, class discussions, question and answer sessions, and in addition adhered to class
rules and regulations, among another student academic behaviour. The result was consistent with the findings
of Al Mamun et al. (2016) which reported the high level of student behavioural engagement in self-paced online
learning among students. This also partially compatible with the study of Ayub et al. (2017) who found that
student behavioural engagement was tended to be at moderate level during online classes.
In contrast with the student affective engagement, the difference student behavioral engagement between
male and female was significant [t(0.239) = 2.875, p = 0.004]. The analysis results of the t-test performed are
served in Table 4. The t-test was carried out after ensuring that the variance was homogene (p = 0.08)
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Table 4. The analysis results of independent sample t-test for student behavioural engagement Level
Levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means
Behavioural engagement
F Sig. t df Sig.
(2-tailed)
Mean
difference
Std. error
difference
95% confidence
interval of the
difference
Lower Upper
Equal variances assumed 3.098 .080 2.875 .239 .004 1.182 .411 .372 1.991
Equal variances not
assumed
3.075 172.934 .002 1.182 .384 .423 1.940
The level of student cognitive engagement in online ERT class during COVID-19 pandemic was determined
descriptively based on students’ responses on section D of COESEQ. The detail analysis results are served in
Table 5.
Table 5. The analysis results of student cognitive engagement level
Item N Sum Mean
Std.
deviation
When I read/listen during Emergency Remote Teaching class, I questioned myself to make
sure I understand the topic I’m learning about
241 840 3.49 .725
If I do not understand the meaning of a word taught during Emergency Remote Teaching class
lesson, I tried to solve the problem, for example by consulting a dictionary or asking someone
else
241 836 3.47 .769
I tried to integrate topics /concepts from different subjects taught during Emergency Remote
Teaching into my general knowledge
241 833 3.46 .724
I tried to integrate the acquired knowledge during Emergency Remote Teaching lesson in
solving new problems
241 819 3.40 .741
I talked to other people on topics/matters that I learned in Emergency Remote Teaching class 241 790 3.28 .847
Aggregate mean score 3.42
Table 5 serves the information that the mean scores ranged from 3.28 to 3.49 with the aggregate mean
score was 3.42. These results implied that the level of student cognitive engagement was high as the aggregate
mean score was greater than 3.00. This implies that the students consciously made intellectual efforts to
correctly comprehend the topics taught in the online ERT classes. This might be the outcome of intellectually
challenging content and instructional strategies employed in the online ERT classes. In addition, based on this
finding, it is suggested that the students need to be engaged in collaborative learning through dialogue with
their peers to clarify what they found in term of difficulties to understand. They also need to be engaged in self-
learning by integrating new topics to what they already learnt to transfer their knowledge across disciplines to
solve novel problems found. The results were in accordance with the findings of Ayub et al. (2017) who reported
that student cognitive engagement tended to be at moderate level during online class.
Meanwhile, the difference of student cognitive engagement in online ERT class during COVID-19 pandemic
between male and female was insignificant [t(239)= 1.248, p=0.213]. The t-test was done after ensuring that
the variance of the two groups was homogene (p = 0.713) based on Levene’s test. These all-test results are
depicted in Table 6.
Table 6. Independent samples t-test for student cognitive engagement level
Levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means
Cognitive
Engagement
F Sig. t df Sig.
(2-
tailed)
Mean
Difference
Std. Error
Difference
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
Equal
variances
assumed
.136 .713 1.248 239 .213 .449 .360 -.260 1.159
Equal
variances not
assumed
1.252 159.311 .198 .449 .348 -.237 1.136
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The level of student general engagement in online ERT class during COVID-19 pandemic was investigated
descriptively by analyzing student responses to all items in sections B, C, and D of the instrument (COESEQ)
used for data gathering in present study. Table 7 serves the summary of the data analyzed.
Table 7. The descriptive analysis results of student general engagement level
Item N Sum Mean SD
I followed the rules in the Emergency Remote Teaching class 241 866 3.59 .659
When I read/ listen during Emergency Remote Teaching class, I question
myself to make sure I understand the topic I’m learning about
241 840 3.49 .725
I paid attention in during Emergency Remote Teaching class lessons 241 839 3.48 .731
If I do not understand the meaning of a word, taught during Emergency Remote
Teaching class lesson, I try to solve the problem, for example by consulting a
dictionary or asking someone else
241 836 3.47 .769
I tried to integrate topics /concepts from different subjects taught during
Emergency Remote Teaching into my general knowledge
241 833 3.46 .724
I usually participate actively in group assignments during Emergency Remote
Teaching class lessons
241 829 3.44 .820
My Emergency Remote Teaching class is an interesting place to be 241 826 3.43 .727
I am interested in the Emergency Remote Teaching class works 241 824 3.42 .782
I tried to integrate the acquired knowledge during Emergency Remote
Teaching lesson in solving new problems
241 819 3.40 .741
I usually do homework given during Emergency Remote Teaching class
lessons
241 812 3.37 .890
I felt excited about the Emergency Remote Teaching class works 241 799 3.32 .885
I like being at Emergency Remote Teaching class 241 792 3.29 .815
I talked to other people on topics/matters that I learned in Emergency Remote
Teaching class
241 790 3.28 .847
When I have doubted, I ask questions and participate in debates/discussions in
Emergency Remote Teaching class lessons
241 778 3.23 .895
I don’t feel very accomplished at Emergency Remote Teaching class lessons 241 720 2.99 .864
Aggregate mean score 3.38
According to the Table 7, it can be seen that the mean scores ranged from 2.99 to 3.59 while the aggregate
mean score was 3.38. As the aggregate mean score was in between the range of 3.01 and 4.00, it implied
that, generally, the level of student engagement was considered to be high. Most likely the online ERT classes
employed active learning strategies which enhanced the students’ engagement. Furthermore, the students
might have even been motivated to embrace ERT as the rewarding alternative platform to escape idleness
and boredom associated with school lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, most tertiary
educational institution students are digital natives and enthusiasts, so that they are often engaged in online
activities. This might have contributed to the observed high level of engagement in online ERT class during
the COVID-19 pandemic school lockdown. The novelty of online ERT mode of instruction could equally have
stimulated and enhanced student engagement. This finding was consistent with the results of similar studies
(Gares et al., 2020; Teoh et al., 2013). Yet, the results were, however, in contrast to Perets et al. (2020) who
reported the low level of student engagement under ERT mode of instruction. These findings showed that in
spite of challenges associated with online ERT mode of instruction (Aguilera-Hermida, 2020; Garbe et al.,
2020; Gares et al., 2020; Knudson, 2020; Tang et al., 2020), student engagement level was not impacted
negatively.
The assessment of student engagement in online ERT class during COVID-19 pandemic in gerenal was
also done based on gender approach (Table 8). Table 8 shows two main points of the test. First, the variance
of the two groups tested were homogene (p = 0.317). Second, there was no significant different of student
engagement between male and female students in online ERT class during COVID-19 pandemic in general
[t(239) = 1.738), p = 0.083].
The observed high level of affective, behavioural, cognitive and general engagement in this study was
indicative that the students were most likely at authentic level of academic engagement classification. The
highest level of student engagement is characterized by meaningful learning, recognition of value of academic
work, eagerness to learn, self-direction and transfer of knowledge, all of which are integral components of the
three subclasses of student engagement. The participation of student in online ERT mode of instructional
delivery was likewise indicative of their strong connections with their institutions, as well as readiness for
academic work and institutional activities, all of which are attributes of highly engaged students as stated by
Singh and Srivastava (2014).
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Table 8. Independent samples t-test for students’ general engagement level
Levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means
General
engagement
F Sig. t df Sig.
(2-
tailed)
Mean
difference
Std. error
difference
95%
Confidence
interval of the
difference
Lower Upper
Equal
variances
assumed
1.004 .317 1.738 239 .083 1.725 .992 -.230 3.679
Equal
variances not
assumed
1.880 177.763 .062 1.725 .918 -.086 3.536
Gender difference in student engagement has been well researched. The findings of this issue in current
study showed that gender difference does not exist in student affective engagement level. This finding implied
that male and female students had similar emotional experiences and disposition during the COVID-19
pandemic school lockdown. However, the findings in this study also clearly revealed that there was significant
difference in the level of student behavioural and cognitive engagements between male and female students. It
is assumed that the stress from domestic choirs might have impacted negatively on female students who
culturally engaged in more domestic works than male students. Hence, somehow, it can be the undergirding
reason of the difference occur between male and female students in their behavior during their participation in
online ERT learning activities. These findings are in accordance with the studies of Teoh et al. (2013) and Ayub
et al. (2017) which recorded gender difference in online learning engagement. In other study, Tison et al. (2011)
also reported the gender difference in student engagement based on the engagement types. In the other words,
there might be several factors which played as intervening variables and influenced student affective,
behavioural, and cognitive engagement levels differently. For instance, motivation (Osagie & Alutu, 2016),
learning style (Ojeh et al., 2017), learning activity (Sata et al., 2015), perception (Reddy, 2017), and so forth.
The general student engagement level was, however, not influenced by gender as revealed in this study.
These results suggested that the online ERT mode of instruction most likely provided gender neutral learning
environment. Similarly, the absence of gender disparities and distractors in social and physical school climate
in online ERT class could also, partially, accounted for the absence of gender difference in student general
engagement level. As the results were inconsistent with many previous studies mentioned, the more detail
investigation needs to be done to elaborate the possible factors associated with the different results. Thus, the
more proper policies can be determined.
The inconsistency in the results of this study with previous studies may be due to the fact that student
engagement levels were not assessed under the online ERT instructional mode in most previous studies as done
in this study. Several intervening variables such large (face-to-face) class has been documented to be hindrance
to student engagement (Barghaus et al., 2017). Moreover, the large classes existed in Colleges of Education,
especially in Biology education programme (Aina & Ayodele, 2018) can be also the reason for different results.
Yet, the results of this study indicated a high level of student engagement contrary to the fact in large face-to-
face classes. These results tended to suggest that online ERT mode of instruction delivery annulled the problem
of promoting student engagement in large (face-to-face) classes.
CONCLUSION
Summarily, there are findings of this study i.e. during online ERT class COVID-19 pandemic, the student
engagement is high in terms of affective, behavior, cognitive as well as in general learning. Morever, based on
gender approach, only in behavior aspect the difference exists significantly between male and female students,
while in the affective and cognitive, as well as in general, the differences were insignificant. Therefore, based on
these findings, several recommendations were made: 1) lecturers in Colleges of Education should employ
dynamic learning activities to sustain the high level of student engagement in learning process post Covid-19
pandemic; 2) Colleges of Education science students should extend their high level of engagement in online ERT
class during COVID-19 pandemic to the face-to-face class after the COVID-19 pandemic; 3) lecturers in Colleges
of Education should employ gender-neutral active learning instructional strategies to eliminate gender difference
in student behavoural engagement; 4) Colleges of Education lecturers should periodically assess students’ level
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of engagement in their courses and take appropriate steps to improve upon it; 5) there is a need for further
studies on the underlying factors responsible for gender difference in student behavioural engagement.
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