The Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance

The Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance

 

ABSTRACT                                              

The study intends to examine the Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance in Mkpat Enin Local Government Area. Four (4) research and questions and hypotheses were raised to guide the study. A survey research design will be adopted for the propose study. The population of the propose study consisted of all the senior secondary two (SS2) students offering English language in ten (10) public secondary schools. The total of one thousand (1000) English language students constituted the population for this study.

The sample size of the study consisted of 100 respondents drawn from selected 10 public secondary schools in the study area. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select one hundred (100) SS2 English language students to form the sample size. “Effects of Instructional Material on Student’s Performance Questionnaire (EIMSPQ)”,” was used for data collection. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and Independents t-test analysis was used for data analysis.

The findings of the study revealed that instructional materials utilization enhance academic performance of students in English language in secondary schools. The study also found that when teachers utilize the available instructional material during teaching it will create a lasting and concrete idea of the concept been taught in the minds of the learners. Hence, it was recommended among others that, adequate instructional materials should be provided in schools by Government for the teachers and learners to use.

 

The Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance

 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study      

Instructional materials are important element of teaching and learning activities. The term instruction according to Adekola (2018) is a deliberate arrangement of experiences within the learning space, classroom, laboratory, workshop, etc. aimed at helping learners to achieve desirable changes in behaviour or performance. Instructional materials are materials which assist teachers to make lessons explicit to learners. Instructional materials are the devices developed or acquired to facilitate teaching and also transmitting knowledge, skill and attitude to the learners within an instructional situation Nwachukwu (2014).

According to Abdullahi, (2015), instructional materials are tools locally made or imported that could make tremendous enhancement of lesson impart if intelligently used. Instructional materials include; visuals, audio, and audio-visuals materials such as pictures, flash-cards, posters, charts, tape recorder, radio, video, television, computers among others. These materials serve as a supplement to the normal process of instruction. (Osafehniti, 2013),points out that concrete or physical object which provides sound, visual or both the sense organ during teaching-learning process.

Teachers should use different instructional materials to motivate the learners to

learn more effectively. Cronbac (2015), opined that, the use of instructional materials during teaching and learning process can appeal to the individual’s attention among students by creating interest in order to attain the goal for the learner. He also noted that, the use of instructional materials can facilitate the decision of a person towards learning by taking the right actions. Learning is facilitated when learners make use of their sense organs for seeing, hearing, and touching. (Morenfolia, 2013) pointed out that instructional materials are normally chosen to meet the teaching requirements of an approved curriculum.

Therefore, in the educational development, selection and acquisition of instructional materials in teaching English language, the relevance of such materials for the contents of the curriculum must be ensured. However, students’ perception of the subject as being particularly oriented needed materials to be used in teaching of English language in secondary schools.   

Onyeozu (2007) Instructional media are resource materials which help to facilitate teaching and learning. The term instructional materials as described by Adekola (2008) are materials available for human senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching or feeling and which assist to facilitate teaching and learning. Instructional media are channels of communication through which information passes for usage in educational institution in conjunction with the instructor. Going through the description of instructional media, it would be observed that the understanding behind the use of instructional media is to aid learner in his learning. Barro (2006) noted that higher quality education fosters economic growth and development.

Appropriate use of instructional media is important factor during the implementation of curriculum which helps the implementers to realize their goals and guide therein the teaching – learning process in the classroom practice (Shiundu and Omulando, 2009). This factor is one of the most important ingredients that bring about good academic performance of students in examinations. Eboh (2010) opined that the basic goals can only be realized through proper utilization of learning resources. No matter how well staffed the school has, without appropriate learning materials, the basic goals of the school cannot be achieved.

Agwu (2011) views instructional media as these apparatus of teaching which may include audio materials, cassette, video tapes, computer and other relevant things that will attract students’ attention, and which should only be introduced at the appropriate time by the teacher. Simply put, instructional media are those things which a teacher puts into use to promote the effectiveness of instructions which also help him or her to communicate more effectively to the learners.

Nevertheless, a number of factors have been attributed to poor achievement in secondary level of education such factor is non – use of instructional media and central in the teaching and learning of English language because no matter the efficiency of a teacher, effectiveness in lesson delivery cannot be guaranteed without the use of instructional media. Emeh and Eze (2008) affirmed that instructional media facilitates learning of abstract concepts by helping to concretize ideas and stimulate learners’ imagination. Moreover, instructional media help to increase active participation in the learning process while saving teacher energy, reducing the verbal instructions. In the same vein, Mathew (2012) stated that the use of instructional media make teaching effective as it enables learners to participate actively in classroom instruction. All these views suggest that the use of instructional media bring about improved pupils performance.

However, in a clear departure from the above views, Oriji (2011) and Ekpe (2010) in their independent studies, agreed that instructional media are not necessary important if the learners are intelligent and the teachers has good mastery of the subject matter. Egbu (2009) argued that involving learners in classroom activities is what matters most as it makes teaching learners centered. He further maintained that involving learners in classroom activities helps learners to discover new knowledge and gain new insight. From the views of the scholars cited above, there is a strong argument on the place of utilization of instructional materials on students academic performance in English language, hence the need for this study.

 

The Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Every year, when the results of public examination are released, there has always been mass failure in English language. The reason for this could be ascribed to the fact that teaching English language as a second language (ESL) in Nigeria pose serious problem of comprehension to students. Also, the reason for this could be attributed to the fact that there are some topics in English language that pose serious challenge to the comprehension of the students. As such, there is need for the use of instructional materials to teach these topics. This is because some topics cannot be taught effectively without the use of relevant instructional materials to make the lesson practical.

Knight (2015) stated that, using the available instructional materials, a student is expected to get the greatest satisfaction in the classroom during teaching. Suddenly, it has been found that most English language teachers have not been using the available instructional materials and as such, students are then to perform very poor in both internal and external examinations. It is based on these problems that the researcher was interest is to find out the extent to which the utilization of instructional materials could effects the students’ academic performance in English language in selected secondary schools.

 

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to examine the Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance in Mkpat Enin Local Government.

Specifically, the study sought to:

1. examine the effects of utilization of visual materials students’ academic performance  in English language in secondary schools
2. ascertain the effects of utilization of audio-visual materials on students’ academic performance in English language in secondary schools.
3. determine the effects of utilization of charts on students’ academic performance in English language in secondary schools
4. assess the effects of utilization of models on students’ academic performance in English language in secondary schools.

1.4 Significance of the Study

Instructional materials utilization and usage gives the learners opportunity to; touch, see, and where possible smell or taste objects in the teaching of English language. Therefore, the study of this nature is significant to students, teachers and the government at large.

This is because; learning is a process through which knowledge, skills, habits, facts, ideas, and principles are acquired, retained and utilized, and the only means of achieving this in English language is through the effective use of instructional materials. The study would help to enhance teaching effectiveness and productivity.

It will further help the teachers to teach effectively in the class by exposing them, to the real teaching objectives. Enhance prompt and significant higher achievement in learners and will be able to promote the learner’s perception understanding, reinforce and retain the learnt materials.

The study will be of immense benefits to the government, ministry of education, and the educational policy makers and administrators as it will emphasize the important of instructional materials in lesson delivery.

Finally, the instructional material utilization in this study will enhance and have values in importing information to the learners, teachers, researcher and the government at large.

 

The Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance

1.5 Research Questions

The following research questions were raised to guide the study:

1. To what extent does the utilization of visual materials effects students’ performance in English language in secondary schools?
2. To what extent does the utilization of audio-visual instructional materials effects students’ performance in English language in secondary schools?
3. How does the utilization of charts effects students’ performance in English language in secondary schools?
4. To what extent does the utilization of models effects students’ performance in English language in secondary schools?

 

1.6       Research Hypotheses

The following research hypotheses were formulated to facilitate the study:

1. Visual instructional material does not significantly effects students’ academic performance in English language in Secondary schools.
2. Audio–Visual instructional materials does not significantly effects students’ academic performance in English language in Secondary schools.
3. There is no significant difference between academic performance of SS2 students taught English language with the use of charts and those taught English language without the use of chart in secondary schools in Mkpat Enin
4. There is no significant difference between academic performance of SS2 students taught English language with the use of models and those taught English language without the use of models in secondary schools.

 

1.7 Limitation of the Study

In conducting a research study of this kind, there are bound to be some challenges. Thus, some of the challenges encountered in the course of this study are as follows:

1. Time constraint: time duration allowed for the completion of this research work could not be enough for the research to have a wider scope. Hence some schools were sampled and student out of all the schools in the area.
2. Financial problem: this constituted one of the major limitations to the researcher especially as the researcher had to source for relevant materials on the topic and visit the sampled schools under the investigation for data collection.
3. Insufficient references materials: this also was a problem as the researcher needed enough relevant literature on the topic.

1.8  Delimitation of the Study

The focus of this study was to examine the Utilization of Instructional Materials and English Student’s Academic Performance in Mkpat Enin Local Government. The scope of the study is delimited to English language students in secondary schools in Mkpat Enin.

 

1.9 Operational definition of Terms

The following are taken as the definition to suit the purpose of this study:

Instructional materials: these are materials use in the teaching and learning which aid the teacher for easy demonstration and stimulate the sensory of the learners. In addition, instructional materials are the tools used in educational lesson which include active learning and assessment.

Teaching: this is the process by which information is transferred from one person to another in a classroom setting.

Learning: this is the processin which knowledge and idea acquired through the process of teaching.

Usage: this involves the proper utilization of materials.

Secondary School: this refers to school which provide secondary education between age 11 and 16 or 11 and 19 after primary and before higher education.

Models: is a representation of a system using general rules and concepts.

Charts: Charts are used in situations where a simple table won’t adequately demonstrate important relationships or patterns between data points.