EFFECTS OF PEER TUTORING INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES ON TECHNICAL COLLEGE STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT, INTEREST AND RETENTION IN BASIC ELECTRICITY IN GOMBE STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study investigated the effects of peer tutoring (Bidirectional and Unidirectional) instructional approaches on technical college students’ achievement, interest and retention in basic electricity in Gombe State. Six research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group design of quasi-experimental study. The study was conducted in six Technical Colleges in Gombe State. A purposive sampling technique was used to drawn four technical colleges for the study. A total of 194 NTC I comprised of 146 males and 48 females students from four technical colleges was used as a sampled population for the study. Simple balloting technique was used to assigned two schools to experimental group one and the other two schools to experimental group two. The instruments used for data collection were: Basic Electricity Achievement and Retention Tests (BEART) and Basic Electricity Interest Inventory (BEII). The BEART and BEII were subjected to face and content validation by three experts. The reliability coefficient of BEART was found to be 0.79 through Kuder-Richardson 21 (K-R 21), while that of BEII was 0.83 through Cronbach Alpha Statistics. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05level of significance. The findings of the study revealed among others that: both Bidirectional and Unidirectional peer tutoring instructional approaches significantly enhanced students’ academic achievement and retention as well as aroused students’ interest in Basic Electricity. The finding further revealed that the students taught Basic electricity using BPT instructional approach had higher mean achievement scores (30.84 > 30.64) than those taught with UPT instructional approach. Also the students taught Basic electricity using BPT instructional approach had higher mean interest scores (35.47 > 32.81) than those taught with UPT instructional approach. Similarly, the students taught Basic electricity using BPT instructional approach had higher mean retention scores (27.94 > 27.82) than those taught with UPT instructional approach. The result of the hypotheses tested showed that, there was no significant difference in the mean achievement and retention, but there was a significant difference in the mean interest scores of learners in both instructional approaches. The results of the hypotheses tested further revealed that there was no significant influence between gender on students’ academic achievement and retention as well as students’ interest in Basic Electricity when taught using bidirectional and unidirectional peer tutoring instructional approaches. Based on the findings, it was recommended that: teachers should adopt peer tutoring instructional approaches in the teaching and learning as this would enhance students’ academic achievement and retention as well as students’ interest in Basic Electricity.