The study determined the relationships of students’ learning modality, teachers’ teaching strategies and the academic performance of Common First Year students in General Botany and General Zoology. A Learning Modality Inventory developed by the researcher was used to assess the learning modality of students as well as Teaching Strategy Inventory, to assess the teaching strategies of the teachers. The students’ academic performance in terms of raw score was taken from General Botany and General Zoology.
Results revealed that students in General Botany and General Zoology were predominantly visual – verbal. The teachers in General Botany were mostly visual – verbal and in General Zoology, tactile – kinesthetic.
Correlation analyses established significant relationships between sex and learning modality in General Botany laboratory; sex and father’s occupation and academic performance in Botany lecture; sex, high school type graduated from, and participation in extracurricular activities and academic performance in General Botany lecture. Only father’s occupation was correlated with the academic performance of students in General Zoology lecture. Furthermore, the teaching strategies in General Botany lecture were significantly correlated with the academic performance, while learning modality was significantly correlated with academic performance in General Zoology lecture.
Results showed that sex is a predictor of performance in General Botany laboratory, while learning modality and ethnicity are the predictors of academic performance in General Botany laboratory.
Stepwise regression revealed that the teaching strategy could predict the academic performance in General Botany lecture, and occupations of the father predict academic performance in General Zoology lecture.
