EFFECTS OF IMPROVISED INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA ON NIGER STATE SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ACHIEVEMENT IN SELECTED BIOLOGY CONCEPTS

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of improvised instructional media on secondary school students’ achievement in biology in Niger State. It also investigated gender and ability levels effects on achievement. Two hundred and seventy (270) students were drawn from nine public senior secondary schools. The design adopted was pretest posttest control group factorial design. The treatment involved teaching the experimental group 1 with the use of improvised models, the experimental group 2 with developed video DVD instructional package and the control group with lecture method. A 40-item Structured Biology Achievement Test (SBAT) was developed and validated for data collection. Its reliability coefficient was found to be 0.83. Seven hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The ANOVA Statistic was used to test the hypotheses. Scheffe’s post hoc test was conducted where significant difference existed among more than two groups. The major findings of the study showed that-there were significant differences between the groups (1 (models) and 2 (video DVD)) respectively and the control group. (F-cal. 83:12 > F-tab. 3.92; P < 0.05) and (F-cal. 112.9 > F-tab. 3.92; p<0.05). There were also significant differences between the male and female experimental groups (1 and 2) respectively and male and female control group. (F-cal. 28.38> F-tab. 2.68; P < 0.05) and (F-cal. 48.58 > F-tab. 2.68; P< 0.05). There were significant differences between the three ability levels of students (high, average and low) in both experimental groups 1 and 2 and their counterparts in the control group. (F-cal. 9.11 > f-tab. 2:29; P< 0.05) and (F-cal. 22.48 > F-tab. 2.29; P< 0.05). Based on the above findings, it was recommended among others that the use of improvised instructional media should be fully encouraged in the absence of instructional media resources; either improvised models or video DVD package could be used by teachers of biology and other science subjects.