Effect of Inquiry Techniques on the Interest of Technical College Students in Auto Mechanic in Nigeria

Abstract

The effect of guided and structured inquiry techniques on the interest of technical college students in vocational education auto mechanics is the main concern of the study. The research adopted a quasi- experimental research design, precisely, pre-test, post-test non equivalent group design which involved groups of students in their intact classes. The population for the study was 195 year II Auto Mechanic (AM) students in the technical colleges in Ekiti State. Two research questions and three null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The instruments used for data collection was the Auto Mechanic Interest Inventory (AMII). The AMII, training manual, Guided and Structured inquiry lesson plans were all subjected to face and content validation by three experts. The trial test for determining the coefficient of internal consistency of the AMII items was carried out using Cronbach Alpha. The reliability coefficient computed for the AMII was 0.85. Mean was used to answer the research questions, while ANCOVA was employed to test the hypotheses. The study revealed that both guided and structured inquiries stimulate students' interest but that the guided inquiry instructional technique was more effective in stimulating students' interest than the structured inquiry technique in auto mechanic. The study also revealed that there was effect of gender on students' interest in auto mechanic favouring boys. There were no interaction effects of treatments and gender on interest of technical college students in auto mechanic. Thus the effectiveness of guided inquiry instructional technique on students' interest in auto mechanic was independent of gender. It was thereafter recommended that Ministries of Education, National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) and NBTE should organize workshops, seminars and conferences for technical teachers on regular basis to enlighten and improve their knowledge and skills on the use of the guided inquiry instructional techniques among other recommendations.