Comparative effects of structured and guided inquiry instructional techniques on students’ academic achievement in basic electricity in Kwara State technical colleges

Abstract

The study was designed to determine the effects of Structured and Guided Inquiry Instructional Techniques on Technical College students’ academic achievement in Basic Electricity. Four research questions raised and 3 Null hypotheses guided the study. Quasi-experimental research design involving pre-test, Post-test, non-equivalent control group was used in this study. The population of the study was 233 Electrical/Electronics Vocational Year 2 students from Kwara State technical colleges. This consisted of 134 students as the subjects in the experimental group I and 99 students as the subjects in the experimental group II. The instrument used for data collection was Basic Electricity Academic Achievement Tests (BEAT). The instrument was subjected to face and content validity by two experts (Lecturers) in Industrial and Technology Education and one expert in Science Education, from Federal University of Technology Minna. Using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation technique, a reliability coefficient of .88 was obtained. Mean was used to answer the research questions, while t-test and ANCOVA were employed to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The findings of study among others revealed that: (i) students taught Basic Electricity using the guided inquiry instructional techniques had a higher mean score than students taught using the structured inquiry technique in Basic Electricity achievement test. (ii), the mean score of boys taught Basic Electricity using guided inquiry instructional technique was higher than the mean score of girls taught using the same guided inquiry instructional technique in the academic achievement test. Consequently, it was recommended among others that, (i) technical college teachers should adopt the use of the guided inquiry instructional technique for the teaching of Basic Electricity and (ii) the Ministry of Education and Administrators of technical colleges should always organize seminars, conferences and workshops to sensitize Basic Electricity and other technical teachers on the use of the guided inquiry instructional techniques in the Technical Colleges.