Effect of Improvised and Standard Instructional Materials on Students Achievement in Chemistry in Secondary Schools

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of improvised and standard instructional materials on students’ academic achievement in chemistry at the secondary school level in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. Experimental research design was adopted in the study. The population of the study was made up of all the chemistry students in the six randomly selected secondary schools in Ebonyi State. The sample size was made up of 120 SS II chemistry students. The instrument used for data collection was the Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) constructed by the researcher and validated by 3 experts, one from measurement and evaluation and 2 from chemistry Education. The instrument was tested for internal consistency using Pearson product moment; reliability coefficient of 0.89 was obtained. The high value shows that the instrument was reliable. The data collected using the CAT instrument was analyzed using mean and standard deviation in answering the 3 research questions. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at an alpha level 0.05 was used in testing the hypotheses that guided the study. The result of the study indicated that those students taught chemistry using improvised materials performed better than those taught without them. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the state and federal government and other stakeholders in Education should help in training and re-training of science (chemistry) teachers by organizing, conferences, seminars and workshops for both the old and newly recruited science teachers.