Abstract:
Over the years, education has focused on closing the enrolment gap between gender while insufficient attention has been paid to relevance methods that could improve academic achievement and skill acquisition. Hence, this study determined the effects of cognitive apprenticeship instructional techniques on students’ achievement, retention and skill performance in automobile mechanics. The study was a pre-test, post-test, non-equivalent control group quasi-experiment which involved groups of respondents in their intact classes assigned to treatment groups. Six research questions and nine hypotheses tested at .05 level of significance guided the study. The population of the study consisted of 167 National Technical Certificate (NTC) II students of Automobile Mechanics in Niger State and the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), Abuja. Niger State and the FCDA are found in the North- Central Geo- Political Zone of Nigeria. The sample size of the study was 144 students from which 98 males and 46 females were assigned to three intact classes each of treatment groups (experiment and control). The Experimental group had 71 students (47 males and 24 females), while the Control group had 73 students (51 males and 22 females). The instruments used for data collection were Automobile Mechanics Achievement and Retention Test (AMART) and Automobile Mechanics Skill Performance Test (AMSPT). The AMSPT which had been validated by the test developer National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) was adopted for the study. To ensure content validation of the test, a Table of Specification was built. The AMART and AMSPT lesson plans were subjected to face and content validation by five experts. The AMART was trial tested for the purpose of determining the psychometric values of the test items. A total of 40 items of the AMART had good difficulty, discrimination and the distracter indices. The trial test for determining the coefficient of stability of the AMART was carried out using test re-test reliability techniques. The test-retest reliability was determine using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and was found to be 0.86. While, the internal consistency of the AMART was checked by Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR20) and was found to be 0.83. The inter-ratter reliability coefficient of AMSPT was determined by Ken dells’ coefficient of concordance and was found to be 0.85. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to analyse data collected from the research questions. Whereas, Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the nine hypotheses that guided the study at .05 level of probability. The study found among others that cognitive instructional techniques were more effective in improving students’ achievement, retention and skill performance than conventional teaching methods. There was an influence of gender on students’ achievement, retention and skill performance favouring boys, though the effect was not significant. The study found no significant interaction effect of treatments and gender on students’ achievement, retention, and skill performance in automobile mechanics. Therefore, irrespective of gender, learners will record improved performance in achievement, retention and skill performance in automobile mechanics when cognitive apprenticeship instructional method is employed for teaching automobile mechanics. The study recommended among others that cognitive apprenticeship instructional method should be incorporated into methodology content of NABTEB Certificates, (NTC and ANTC) of Automobile mechanics, and should be extended to other vocational and technical areas after its effect have been determined.
