Effects of Constructivism and Experiential Learning Models on Students’ Achievement and Interest In General Metalwork in Plateau and Kaduna States, Nigeria

Abstract

The rapid rate of technological development in general metalwork and the increasing demands for cognitive, and psychomotor, capabilities in the mechanical world of work from technical college graduate call for a search for a complementary learning procedure to equip mechanical craftsmen with the necessary skills in general metalwork for performing and coping effectively in the mechanical world of work. This study determined the effects of constructivism and experiential learning models on students‟ achievement and interest in general metalwork. The study was a pretest, posttest, non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design. Two research questions and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The population of the study consisted of 146 National Technical College one (TC I) Students offering General metalwork in Plateau and Kaduna States. Simple random sampling technique was used to arrive at four Technical Colleges offering Welding and Fabrication Engineering craft, to get a sampled population of 109 (TC I) Students from four intact classes. The experimental group „A‟ (CLM) had a population of 53 students while the experimental group „B‟ (ELM) had a population of 56 students. Two sets of lesson plan were designed and used to teach both experimental groups. The constructivism instructional lesson plan was used to teach experimental group „A‟ while the experiential learning model lesson plan was used to teach the experimental group „B‟. The instrument used for data collection were, metalwork cognitive achievement test (MCAT), and metalwork interest inventory (MII). The instruments, as well as the lesson plans were validated by three experts in the Department of Industrial and Technology Education, Federal University of Technology Minna. Nigeria. Through the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) data collected were analyzed using mean and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Mean was used to answer the research questions while ANCOVA was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that students taught with constructivism learning model perform better as they have higher achievement score and higher interest score than those taught with experiential learning model. The findings from the hypotheses revealed significant difference in the mean cognitive achievement score, and interest score of students taught general metalwork using constructivism and experiential learning model. It is therefore recommended that technical college teachers be encouraged, trained, and equipped with the necessary skills required to effectively used constructivism learning models for classroom instructions and learning.