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(Received 29, August 2012; Revision Accepted 12, February 2013)
ABSTRACT
This research work investigated the influence of instructional materials (teaching aids) on students' academic performance in senior secondary school Chemistry in Cross River State. A two group pre-test post test quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study. One research question and one hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. A total of 100 senior secondary one (SS1) Chemistry students were selected from five (5) Schools in Yakuur Local Government Area of Cross River State through simple random sampling and stratified random sampling techniques. Fifty SSI students (Experimental group) were taught with instructional materials and another forty (Control group) were taught without instructional materials. A validated Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) was used to gather data for the study and a split-half was carried out using the Pearson product moment correlation to obtain a reliability coefficient of 0.67.Independent t-test was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 significant level while the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient at that level was used to analyse the research questions. The study revealed that students taught with instructional materials performed significantly better than those taught without instructional materials and also that the use of instructional materials generally improved students' understanding of concepts and led to high academic achievements . Recommendations were made on how to improve academic performance of chemistry students by encouraging the use of instructional materials in teaching-learning chemistry.
KEY WORDS: instructional materials, teaching-learning, sampling techniques, academic performance and Experimental group.
INTRODUCTION
Instructional materials serve as a channel between the teacher and the students in delivering instructions. They may also serve as the motivation on the teaching-learning process. It is use to get the attention of the students and eliminate boredom. Instructional materials are highly important for teaching; especially for inexperienced teachers. Teachers rely on instructional materials in every aspect of teaching. They need material for background information on the subject they are teaching. Young teachers usually have not built upon their expertise whenever they enter into the field. Teachers often use instructional materials for lesson planning. These materials are also needed by the teachers to assess the knowledge of their students. Teachers often assess students by assigning tasks, creating projects, and administering exams. Instructional materials are...