Effects of computer-assisted instruction on students’ achievement in atomic and nuclear physics in Senior Secondary Schools in Rivers State

Abstract

The study examined the Effects of computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) on students’ achievement in Atomic and Nuclear Physics in Rivers state. The objective of the study was to determine the difference in the academic achievement Physics students when taught atomic and nuclear physics with CAI and lecture method. The study adopted pretest-posttest design of quasi-experimental research. The study was carried out in Rivers state senior secondary schools. The population of the study comprised of all senior secondary school 3 physics students in Rivers state. The sample size of the study was drawn using purposive random sampling. The total sample size of the study was one hundred and twenty (120). The sample size was grouped to control (60) and experimental groups (60). The instrument used for the study was an achievement test which was tagged “Atomic and Nuclear Physic Achievement Test (ANPAT)”. The instrument consisted 40 Multiple Choice Question (MCQ). The instrument was sectioned into four parts, each section measured students’ knowledge on the models of atom, energy quantization, photoelectric emission and thermionic emission. The reliability of the instrument was tested using test-retest method which yielded 0.88 reliability coefficient. Mean and standard deviation was used for data analysis while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. It was found that students that were taught atomic and nuclear physics with CAI (60.5) have higher mean achievement scores than those taught with lecture method (44.1).   This implies that students taught atomic and nuclear physics using computer assisted instruction performed better than those taught with lecture method. The t-test analysis also showed that the differences that exist in the mean are statistically significant at 0.05. Thus, the study recommended that government should assist the schools to make adequate computers available for teaching and learning physics in secondary schools.