INFLUENCE OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study examined the influence of instructional materials on students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study was a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was 21,272 senior secondary school students in form 2 (SS2) in 267 public secondary schools in the six Education Zones in Anambra State. The sample of 1,068 SS2 students was used for the study. Multistage sampling techniques comprising proportionate stratified and simple random sampling technique was used for the study. Instructional Materials Rating Scale (IMRS) was used for data collection while Students’ Academic Performance Scores (SAPS) was used to measure students’ academic performance for this study. The instruments were subjected to face and construct validation. The data collected from the pilot testing were subjected to internal consistency reliability technique for the items in each cluster using Cronbach Alpha and the average coefficient values of 0.81 for IMRS was considered highly reliable and suitable for the study. Mean, standard deviation and paired sample t-test was used for data analysis. The study revealed that audio-visual and printed instructional materials positively and significantly influences students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Anambra State. The study concluded that the use of instructional materials is an important variable that influence students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Based on the findings, the study recommended that public secondary school teachers especially English Language teachers should use instructional materials in their lesson presentation as this will make their lesson clear, easy for students to assimilate and reduce boredom in the classroom.