ABSTRACT

Biology has application nearly in every field of life. Inspite of the importance of biology for national development, the persistent poor achievement of students in biology in Nigeria at the Senior Secondary school level in the past decade has been a matter of serious concern to Educationist and other stakeholders. It is not clear if lack of utilization of instructional media by biology teachers is the contributing factor for this development. This necessitated the present study to determine the impact of projected instructional media on both male and female students’ achievement in biology in Senior Secondary schools in Makurdi. The quasi-experimental design was employed in the study with a pretest-posttest equivalent group design. Among the 9,215 student offering biology, eighty (80) students drawn randomly form two (2) schools. Mean () and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, t-test and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Findings indicated that students taught using projected instructional media achieved better than those taught using conventional method, male and female students taught using projected instructional media achieved a significance difference scores (achievement). Instructional media that is computers, multimedia, slide, television, projectors and others are recommended to be made available in the schools to make teaching more effective and result oriented.

1.0                                                       INTRODUCTION

Teaching and learning processes are very crucial at all levels of educational development. If well planned and directed, they are the key to success and progress of an individual. Therefore, best methods have to be used in order to enhance effective teaching and learning. Consequently, the need to employ the use of teaching aids otherwise referred to as audiovisual resources to enhance effective teaching and learning. Instructional resources according to Dike (2010) do not only increase the motivation of the teachers and learners. They add clarity to the topic taught and make learning more interesting. Permanent learning according to Ahmed (2010) is the goal of education in that the learner should be able to retain what is taught instructional materials make learning more permeant since they appeal to more than one sense research by Ode and Omokaro (2007) revealed that learners retain most of what they hear see and feel than what they merely hear. This concept bears credence to old Chinese adage which says what I hear I forget what I remember and what I do I know. A visual instruction encourages the use of audiovisual resources to make abstract ideas more concrete to the learners. Therefore, the teacher’s duty is to make learning live, not just something to remember but part of live experience. This can be done effectively by employing the use of audiovisual aids in teaching and learning as means impacting knowledge to learners. Educators have come to realize that the most effective teaching and learning take place when an individual has direct experience with the subject under study, in order wise. Learners learn best by doing. It is only by the use of audiovisual resource that learners can be offered the opportunity to learn by doing, this is because attention, motivation, concentration and retention of fats enhanced through the use of audiovisual materials.

However, there has been no consensus on the work ability or otherwise of the use of audiovisual resources in teaching and learning of to the numerous work done by researchers and authors of repute on the contrary there has been a surge in the number of people who feel worried about the negative aspects in the use of audiovisual resources.

In fact, the saw the use of instructional resources in teaching and learning as an eccentric in totality. The dissenting voices wondered if instructional resources have in any way enhanced teaching and learning it is against this backdrop that the study investigates the impact of the use of projected instructional resources on teaching and learning.

The teaching and learning of all science subjects in general and Biology in particular require a lot of instructional media. These instructional media are resources that an instructor uses to implement instruction and facilitate learning as they help to grasp student’s attention, sprout and stimulate their interest, it also help in making learning to become an enjoyable experience (Akoja & Ali 2012). The instructional media are not available in many schools, where they are available; they are also grossly inadequate in supply. The scarcities of instructional media in many schools today have resulted in ineffective teaching of Biology leading to poor achievement of students both in internal and public examinations. Eniayeju (2005) in support of this, reported that factors responsible for students’ poor achievement in science, technology and mathematics, are poor laboratory facilities, inability of science teachers to put across ideas clearly to the students and inadequate number of learning facilities in schools as against consistent increase in the number of schools students’ enrolment.

In view of this;  Igyo (2000), see instructional media as those teaching aids and devices that have been systematically designed, produced and evaluated which an instructor or facilitator uses to illustrate the point he wishes to emphasize in his teaching and his intentions to facilitating learning. According to Njoku in Akoja and Ali (2012), instructional media are those channels of communication which promote the effectiveness of instruction and help the teacher to communicate ideas effectively to his students. Instructional media are those alternative channels of communication which a Biology teacher can use to concretize a concept during his/her teaching.

Instructional media includes all the materials and substantial resources that an educator might use to implement instruction and facilitate students’ achievement of instructional objectives. They (instructional media) aim at grasping attention, sprouting interest, supporting learning with living example and visual elaboration, making a learning environment in class, and it also help in turning learning so as to make it an enjoyable experience. (Isola, 2010)

Instructional media are in various classes, such as audio or aural, visual or audio visual. Thus, audio instructional media refers to those devices make use of the sense of hearing only, like radio, audio tape recording. Visual instructional media on the other hand are those device that appeal to the sense of sight only such as the chalkboard, chart, slide and filmstrip. An audio visual instructional media, however, is a device that combines the appeal to the sense of both hearing and seeing such as television, motion picture and computer. Among the instructional media the classroom teacher uses, the visual out-numbered the combination of the audio and audio- visual. (moronfola, 2002& Kareem, 2003).

Instructional media are concrete or non-concrete in nature which the teacher uses in a lesson for teaching. Such media could be used to carry ideas, knowledge, information and message about what the teacher takes to his students (Amali & Adejoh, 2013). Akoja and Ali,(2012) posit that to enhance effective classroom communication, the teacher should employ different approaches and means which appeal to sense of the learners. Instructional media in this regard are necessary in stimulating all the five senses such as hearing, touching, seeing, smelling and feeling (Isola, 2010). The research by Akoja and Ali (2012) shows that the use of instructional media promotes a better retention of ideas, making learning more permanent and gives a high degree of interest to students. Non utilization of instructional media as one of the factor that are responsible for poor achievement of students in sciences, technology and mathematics. This necessitates the present study to explore the use of instructional media to teach Biology concepts and how this can impact students’ achievement in biology

Achievement is the measures of accomplishment in a specific study (Musa & Agwagah, 2006 & Abakpa, 2011). The authors maintain that achievement of the students is the demonstration of the abilities to facilitate the learning of abstract concept and idea, this is because instructional media are regarded as reinforce of cognitive, affective and psychomotor aspect of learning. The teaching learning process may lead to an effective retention of knowledge as students tend to remember what they see, touch, feel and manipulate.

So many researchers and biology teachers have use different instructional material like charts, models, printed materials, felt boards, chalk boards etc to improve students achievement in biology subject but the problem still lingers, the present researcher intend to use the projected aid as an instructional media which is a device for transmitting photographic and other images in an enlarged form onto a viewing screen. The projected aid or projector employs a light source and a lens system for usage. The use of motion pictures and filmstrips as well as slides is also involved in this aid. It can be seen as the most convenient and cost effective instructional media. It can be used to display moving or still picture and its effectiveness depend on the quality of the projected image. This media could help to reduce the abstract nature of the concepts and enhance students’ achievement of biology subject.

1.1              Statement of the Problem

Biology has application nearly in every field of life. Inspite of the importance of biology for national development, the persistent poor achievement of students in biology in Nigeria at the Senior Secondary school level in the past decade has been a matter of serious concern to Educationist and other stakeholders. The WAEC Chief Examiner’s annual reports show that the failure indices are on the increase. The percentage of students that passed biology at the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) was 28.50 in 2009, 49.60 in 2010, 38.40 in 2011, 34.00 in 2012 and 33.90 in 2013. The number of students that passed biology at credit level (A1-C9) was consistently less than 50% in the past five years (2003-2009) in Nigeria. This may be that student are having difficulty in understanding and assimilating the Biological concept taught theoretically without the use of instructional media. Finding also show that female students’ achievement in biology is low compare to their male students’ counterpart. It is not clear if lack of utilization of instructional media by biology teachers is the contributing factor for this development. This necessitate the present study to determine the impact of projected instructional media on both male and female students’ achievement in biology in Senior Secondary schools. The problem now is; would achievement and retention of both male and female students improve when taught biology using projected instructional media?

1.2              Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of projected instructional media on senior secondary students’ achievement in Biology in Makurdi Benue State, Nigeria. Specifically the study shall find out:

1. If the use of projected instructional media will help to improve senior secondary one students’ achievement in Biology
2. 2.      If the use of instructional media will breach the achievement gap between male and female students in Biology.

1.3              Research Question

The following research questions have been raised to guide the study:

(1)   What is the mean difference in achievement score of the students taught Biology using instructional media and their counterpart taught biology without instructional media in Biology Achievement Test?

(2)   What is the mean difference in the achievement scores of male and female students taught biology using non-projected instructional materials?

1.4              Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were formulated for the study

1. There is no significant difference in the mean achievement score of students taught biology using instructional media and those taught without instructional media.
2. There is no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of female and male students taught Biology using instructional media

1.5              Significance of the study

The study on the use of instructional media and improvement of Science Education   especially Biology will be of immense benefit to the following stakeholders of Biology education in Nigeria. The students, teachers, parents, educational administrators, curriculum planners and future researchers could benefit on the finding of this study.

The finding of this study will be of help to the students in leaning and acquiring knowledge and skills in biology. The study may also be of benefit if the utilization of instructional media proved effective, as students’ achievement may increase. This is because instructional media may integrate the cognitive, affective and psychomotor aspects of learning of biology and making teaching and learning attractive, inspirational and effective.

The finding of this study will encourage biology science teachers to make use of instructional media in their teaching and learning process to facilitate their effective communication. This may consequently enable biology teachers to present biology concept to their students in the way they will understand, assimilate and retain the knowledge for high achievement. The implication is that the success will boost the biology teachers’ morale.

The findings of this study may also sensitize school administration to encourage Biology teachers to utilize instructional media by providing them necessary instructional materials for the teaching and learning of biology. The finding of the study will also be of benefit to biology curriculum planners; this is because they will systematically plan the curriculum alongside with the needed instructional materials to be used in order to facilitate students’ achievement in biology.

The finding of this study will be of benefit for government, to see the need to retrain biology teacher on the proper use of instructional media. The finding of the study also will serve as a guide for the government to provide the necessary instructional material in the school to assist both the teachers and students in the teaching and learning of biology.

The finding of this study may also serve as a source of information in library conference in the institution of learning and for those who may want to carryout research in biology on the utilization of instructional media. It is hoped that the findings of this study will serve as a basis for further studies in the area of biological approach of teaching in respect to use of instructional materials.

1.6              Scope of the study

The study will be carried out in Makurdi. The study intends to specifically ascertain the impact of instructional media on students’ achievement on lower and higher order cognitive ability tasks in Biology using Blooms’ lower and higher level of cognitive domain which hierarchically consist to recall-knowledge, comprehension and application as the lower cognitive domain and, analysis, synthesis and evaluation which constitute the higher cognitive level.

The content coverage will be on plant nutrition, Photosynthesis, chemistry of photosynthesis, stages involve in photosynthesis (light and dark reactions), products of photosynthesis and their uses, importance of photosynthesis, materials and conditions necessary for photosynthesis, leaf adaption for photosynthesis and experiment on photosynthesis, SS1 students will be use for the study. An achievement test on photosynthesis will be administered or carried out; this is because it is at this level that biology concepts are introduced to students as the integral part of the syllabus of Secondary School biology

1.7              Operational Definition of Terms

Instructional media –this are those channels by which information skills, knowledge etc. is transmitted to learners during –learning process and assist in achieving the stated behavioral objectives when evaluation is carried  out at the class or programme.

Achievement –this is a measure of success exhibited by the senior secondary school student in term of score obtained in a Biology Achievement Test administered.

Projected aids – are instructional media which is a device for transmitting photographic and other image in an enlarged form into a viewing screen.

Teacher – this is a facilitator for the acquisition of Biology knowledge and skills by the students in formal school setting.

Students – students here means learners of the last three years of secondary school education in formal schooling of 9-3-4 Nigeria Education programme.

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