Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of peer tutoring, reciprocal peer tutoring and conventional teaching method on students’ performance in Building Technology. The population of the study consisted of all the 232 ND II students in the four Polytechnics offering Building Technology in Edo, Delta and Ondo States of Nigeria. The study sample was made up of 192 ND II Building Technology students. Purposive random sampling technique was used in selecting three out of the four Polytechnics offering Building Technology in the three States. In each of the Polytechnics, the ND II Building Technology intact classes were randomly assigned to peer tutoring, reciprocal peer tutoring and conventional teaching method treatments, respectively. The quasi-experimental research design which utilized non-randomized pre-test, post-test, experimental-control group design was employed. Four null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The instruments used for data collection - the Building Technology Achievement Test (BTAT) and the Workplace Skill Rating Scale (WRRS) were used for both pre-test and post-test. BTAT consisted of 80 multiple choice items and had a reliability co-efficient of 0.83 which was obtained using Kuder Richardson’s formula 20. BTAT was validated by five Building Technology experts from Universities and Polytechnics. WSRS was a 45-item instrument, with a three point scale that was adapted from Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada (2000). The data collected were analyzed using Mean, t-test, ANOVA and ANCOVA statistics. The findings revealed that: there was a significant difference between the post-test Mean score of the control group taught with conventional teaching method and that of the experimental groups taught with peer tutoring and reciprocal peer tutoring, in favour of reciprocal peer tutoring; there was a significant difference in Building Technology students’ acquisition of workplace skills as a result of different teaching methods used in teaching students; Students in co-operative learning groups (peer tutoring and reciprocal peer tutoring) acquired workplace skills better than those under the conventional teaching method; Gender had no significant effects on students’ performance; there was no significant interaction effect of gender and teaching methods on students’ performance in Building Technology. It was concluded that the cooperative learning methods (peer tutoring and reciprocal peer tutoring) are better than conventional teaching method. It was recommended among others that: Building Technology teachers should be encouraged to employ peer tutoring and reciprocal peer tutoring more in their teaching method in order to increase the level of students’ performance in Building Technology; the conventional teaching method which seems to prevail in Nigerian educational institutions should be minimized.
