Development and Efficacy of Instructional Software on Secondary School Students’ Interest and Achievement of Transport System in Keffi, Nigeria

Abstract

This study developed and tested the efficacy of an instructional software on interest and achievement in transport system among secondary school students in Keffi, Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted quasi experimental, non-equivalent pre-test and post-test control group design. The sample was drawn from a population of 2,432 public senior secondary two (SSII) students in Keffi Education Zone. Two intact classes were sampled using multi-stage sampling technique. The two classes were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Two researcher developed and expert validated instruments namely: Transport System Achievement Test (TSAT) and Interest Scale on Transport System  (ISTS) were used for data collection .The Split half reliability of  TSAT was 0.79 while the  Cronbach alpha  reliability of  ISTS was  0.85. The experimental group was taught using Transport System Instructional Software (TSIS ) while the control group was taught Transport System using the Conventional method. The Transport System Achievement post- test was administered to both the experimental and control groups at the end of the treatment. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviations were used to answer the research questions while the null hypotheses were tested using ANCOVA. The results showed that students taught transport system using the instructional software achieved higher than those taught using the conventional teaching approach (F=75.195;P=.000 <α =.05). However, there was a significant difference in the mean interest scores of Biology students taught transport system using the instructional software and those taught using conventional method (F= 115,736; P=.000  <α = .05 ). The findings showed that TSIS can improve students’ achievement. It is recommended among others that Biology teachers should be encouraged to develop and use TSIS to teach these concepts as it enhances Biology achievement among students.

Keywords: Development, Efficacy, Software, Instruction, Interest, Achievement, Transport system

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/13-18-04

Publication date:October 31^st 2022