EFFECT OF COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND INTEREST IN GEOGRAPHY IN SELECTED PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the effect of computer assisted instruction on students’ academic achievement and interest in geography in selected public secondary schools in Anambra State. Two research questions were raised for the study while two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Quasi experimental design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted of all the 8,656 Senior Secondary One (SS1) students in the 193 co-educational secondary schools in Anambra State. The sample for the study comprised 579 SSI students drawn from the population from three educational zones in Anambra State using simple random sampling technique. Two instruments used for data collection in this study were Geography Achievement Test (GAT) and Geography Interest Scale (GIS) constructed by the researcher. The instruments for data collection were validated by three experts. The reliability of the GAT (.76) and GIS (.82) was ascertained using Kuder Richardson reliability measure while GIS scale was established using Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient. Data collected from the pretest and post test were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. In order to compare the performance (mean scores) of the experimental groups (those taught with CAI) and control groups (those taught with conventional method), analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the significance of the differences at 0.05 alpha levels. Among other things, the findings of the study revealed that CAI improved students’ geography achievement and interest more than the lecture method. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among other things that teachers who are experiencing abysmal failures of their students’ performance in geography and other subjects should in collaboration of their management authorities experiment the effectiveness of CAI rather than sticking with the conventional methods.