EFFECT OF HANDS-ON TEACHING STRATEGY ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN KEYBOARDING SKILLS ACQUISITION IN FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC, MUBI, NIGERIA

Abstract

Keyboarding is a popular business course for many students whose major objectives are to develop touch control of the keyboard and proper typing techniques. It also involves building basic speed and accuracy, and provides practice in applying those skills to the formatting of letters, reports, tables, memos, and other kinds of personal and business communication. The performance of National Diploma (ND) I students in this course seems to be on the decline. The reason for this failure may be tied to the theoretical nature in which this course is being taught. To this end, this study investigated the Effect of Hands-On Teaching Strategy on Students’ Academic Achievement in Keyboarding Skills Acquisition in Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested in the study. The research design adopted was the quasi-experimental non-equivalent pre-test, post-test, control group design. The sample comprised of 120 ND I students purposively selected from the department of Office Technology and Management, Federal Polytechnic, Mubi. A research instrument titled ‘’Keyboarding Achievement Test (KAT)’’ was constructed by the researcher and used to obtain data. The instrument was validated and pilot tested. The Guttmann statistic was used in calculating the reliability coefficient. This gave a reliability index of 0.72. The independent samples t-test statistic and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used in analyzing data obtained from the study. The Scheffes post hoc test was used to establish the magnitude of significance between the experimental and control groups’ mean scores. The study revealed that students exposed to keyboarding skills acquisition through hands-on teaching strategy achieved remarkable results than their counterparts taught using the conventional method. There was no significant effect of gender on academic achievement of students exposed to keyboarding skills acquisition using hands-on teaching strategy with conventional method. It was concluded that hands-on teaching strategy was effective in teaching keyboarding skills; hence teachers should be encouraged to use the strategy in teaching keyboarding from the onset of the ND programme. Article visualizations: