ASSESSMENT ON EFFICACY OF LOCALLY-MADE DIGITAL INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL ON ACHIEVEMENT OF PHYSICS STUDENTS ON CURRENT ELECTRICITY

Nwoye,  Amarachukwu Nkechi & Nwosu, Frederick Chukwuebuka

Department of Science Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka; Nigeria

Department of Electrical/Electronic Engineering,  Federal Polytechnic Oko, Nigeria Email: ammynwoye@yahoo.com; jirebus@gmail.com;

ABSTRACT

Problem in the use of analogue electric circuit is observing of readings in uneasy manner and manifestation of parallax error, but use of digital electric circuit is advantageous for it displays readings in fast and accurate manner. This paper focused on assessment on the efficacy of locally-made digital instructional material on physics students’ achievement on current electricity. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. A quasi-experimental research design was used for the study such that experimental group and the control group were taught with locally-made digital instructional material and standard analogue instructional material respectively. The two groups were subjected to pre-test and post-test. Two independent variables in the experiment were instructional material type and gender; a dependent variable was achievement. Population of the study comprised of all SS1 physics students in Anambra State. Purposive sampling was used in selection of 264 students. The instrument used for data collection was Achievement Test on Current Electricity (ATOCE) which is a 40-item 4-option multiple choice objective test with reliability co-efficient of 0.87. Mean and standard deviation were used in answering the research questions. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significant using ANCOVA. Result obtained showed that physics students taught current electricity with locally-made digital instructional material has higher mean achievement score than those taught with standard analogue instructional material. Hypothesis tested (F = 288.504, P = 0.000) further showed that there was a significant difference in the mean achievement scores of the two groups of physics students. Result also showed that female physics students had a slightly higher mean achievement score than their male counterparts; but hypothesis tested (F = 0.469, P = 0.494) showed that there was no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of male and female physics students. It was concluded that the locally-made digital instructional material was efficacious in enhancing achievement of physics students on current electricity, and it was also gender-friendly. Recommendations made focused on supporting the production and use of locally-made digital instructional material.

Keywords: Locally-made digital instructional material, current electricity, achievement, physics students