Gender and Academic Retention of Secondary School Students Taught Electrostatics with Computer Animated Instructional Package in Awka Education Zone

Abstract

Several researchers had investigated how multi-media could be used to improve understanding of difficult and abstract topics in physics yet; a few studies have been conducted to investigate the gender differences in students’ learning retention through multi-media use. This paper determined gender differences in students’ academic retention in electrostatics through computer animated instructional package (CAIP)in Awka Education Zone. of Anambra state, Nigeria. One research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design was adopted for the study. Population was 3,438 senior secondary one (SS I) students from government owned co-educational secondary schools in the area. A sample of 68SS I from Awka south and Dunukofia Local Government Areas was selected through multistage sampling. The students were exposed CAIP produced by the researchers which is based on the content of the SS I physics scheme of work. Instrument for data collection was Electric Charge Electric Field Achievement Retention Test (ECEFART) validated by three experts with a reliability index of 0.89 using KR-20 formula. Mean and Analysis of covariance were used for data analysis. Findings revealed that; gender had no significant influence on students’ retention in electrostatics when taught with CAIP; there was no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on students’ academic retention. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that since computer animated package enhances retention in physics, teachers should embrace its usage in classroom.