EFFECT OF COMPUTER ANIMATION INSTRUCTIONAL PACKAGE ON SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS STUDIES IN DELTA STATE

Abstract

Christian Religious Studies (CRS) is one of the important subjects taught in secondary schools in Nigeria but has witnessed poor achievement by students. Teachers are faced with the need to look out for innovative instructional package that could enhance learning, in order to improve students’ academic achievement. This study investigated the effect of computer animation instructional package on secondary school students’ achievement in CRS in Asaba Education Zone of Delta State. Two research questions guided the study and there null hypotheses were tested. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design. Specifically, pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group design involving 2x2x2 factorial model. Population of the study consisted of 2,927 SS2 CRS students in the 52 public secondary schools in the zone used. The sample consisted of 186 students drawn from four intact classes from two co-educational secondary schools out of the 40 co-educational secondary schools in Asaba Education Zone. One of the schools was randomly assigned to experimental group while the other was assigned to control group. Christian Religious Studies Achievement Test (CRSAT) was the instrument used to collect data for the study. The instrument was validated by experts. The CRSAT was trial tested on an intact class of 40 students from Agbor Education Zone. The reliability coefficient of CRSAT was established to be 0.87 using Kuder Richardson (KR-20). The CRSAT was administered to the students as pretest and posttest for data collection. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed among others that the experimental group achieved higher than the control group because the use of computer animation instructional package stimulated and encouraged the students to participate actively in the lessons. Again, there was significant interaction effect of teaching method and gender on students' mean achievement scores in CRS. Based on the results of the study, it was recommended among others that computer animation instructional package should be adopted by teachers for teaching CRS concepts to secondary school students.