Improving students’ performance in Microsoft excel 2007 by using multimedia tutorials with quizzes

Abstract

The use of demonstration during practical lessons for learners to observe without practice is very common in most Ghanaian schools. This does not enhance understanding. Demonstration without hands-on practical does not enhance learners’ understanding of Microsoft Excel. The main purpose of this study is to help students in level 200 in Bagabaga College of Education use Microsoft Excel 2007 to do calculations as prescribed in the syllabus. The Microsoft Excel 2007 is an improvedversion of the 2003 version with the ribbon feature. This makes it suitable for adoption to teach what the syllabus requires. Sixty (60) students out of the total population of 555 students were taken as sample to carry out the investigation in the form of experiment against the rest of the population. Instruments used are: test and observation. These were used at the pre-intervention and post-intervention stages of the research. Multimedia tutorials were developed as an intervention to help improve the students’ performance. A post-intervention information revealed that students’ performance improved significantly. Camtasia Studio 7 was used in developing the tutorial with natural Ghanaian narrations by the tutor. The findings of the researchrevealed practical lessons that are taught by mere demonstrations without students’ practice do not enhance students’ understanding of the subject-matter. Demonstration coupled with students practical are vital to student understanding ofclassroom lessons.