Abstract:
This study was designed to determine the combined effect of Computer Tutorial and Drill on senior secondary school student’s achievement, interest and retention in Basic Electronics in Lagos State. A pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group, quasi-experimental research design was adopted. Six research questions and eight hypotheses, tested at 0.05 level of significance, guided the study. The population for the study comprised all the 161 SS1 Basic Electronics students from the nine senior secondary schools offering basic electronics at SSCE level in Lagos State. The sample size for this study was 117 SS1 Basic Electronics students. Sixty eight (68) SS1 students constituted the students in the experimental group and 49 SS1 students constituted the students in the control group. The instruments used for data collection were; Basic Electronics Achievement Test (BEAT) and Basic Electronics Interest Inventory (BEII). To ensure content validity of the BEAT, a Table of Specification was built for the test. The BEII which was used to test the students’ interest in Basic Electronics was also developed by the researcher and it contained 30 items. The instruments were also subjected to face validation by five experts which included; three lecturers from the Department of Vocational Teacher Education and two lecturers from Measurement and Evaluation Department all from University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The BEAT was trial tested for the purpose of determining the psychometric indices of the test. A total of 45 multiple choice items of the BEAT which had good difficulty, discrimination and distractor indices were selected for the study. The trial test for determining the coefficient of stability of the BEAT was carried out using test re-test reliability technique. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient of the BEAT was found to be 0.72, while the use of KR20 in assessing the test of internal consistency yielded a reliability index of 0.85. Cronbach Alpha was also used to determine the internal consistency of the BEII items. The reliability coefficient computed for the BEII was found to be .92 while Pearson Moment correlation test yielded 0.89. The data collected were analyzed using Mean, to answer the research questions while ANCOVA was used to test the nine hypotheses formulated to guide this study. The study found out that students taught basic electronics using Computer Tutorial and Drill had a higher mean score than students taught using the conventional teaching method in achievement test and test for retention of learning. In each of the cases, the high mean scores were found to be significant. Students taught basic electronics with Computer Tutorial and Drill had a higher mean interest score than those students taught using the conventional teaching method in the interest inventory items and the high mean scores was also found to be significant. Furthermore, the mean score of boys taught basic electronics using Computer Tutorial and Drill was higher than the mean score of girls taught using the same Computer Tutorial and Drill in the achievement test, and test for retention of learning, but the high mean score was not found to be significant. Boys taught Basic Electronics with Computer Tutorial and Drill had a higher mean interest score than girls taught with the same Computer Tutorial and Drill in the interest inventory items but the higher mean score was not found to be significant. The study found out no significant interaction effects of treatments and gender on achievement and interest of students in basic electronics. Hence, irrespective of gender, learners would record improved achievement and will be aroused in their interest in basic electronics when Computer Tutorial and Drill is used for teaching basic electronics. Therefore the study recommended that; Technical teachers of basic electronics in Lagos State should adopt the use of the Computer Tutorial and Drill to teach basic electronics. Curriculum planners should consider review of curriculum for basic electronics for secondary schools with a view to incorporating the Computer Tutorial and Drill technique. Necessary attention should be accorded computer literacy and operation in the senior secondary schools. The relevant Computer Tutorial and Drill packages should be developed for use within the Nigerian secondary school systems.
