DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF SELF-HELP GUIDE FOR REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE OF DOMESTIC ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES BY USERS IN TARABA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study aimed at developing and validating a self-help guide for repair and maintenance of domestic electrical appliances by users in Taraba State. Three specific purposes, three research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study. Research and Development design was adopted for the study. The population was 391 comprising 157 registered electrical/electronic certified technicians with at least Trade Test III certificate operating in Taraba State, 19 technical college teachers with majors in electrical/electronic education and 215 newly recruited apprentices under the National Directorate of Employment in Taraba State. Systematic sampling technique was used to draw 113 registered electrical/electronic certified technicians, all the 19 technical colleges teachers and two intact clusters of 26 and 23 NDE newly recruited apprentices were purposively selected. A 197 item researcher-developed instrument titled “Self-Help Guide for Repairs and Maintenance of Domestic Electrical Appliances Questionnaire” was used to elicit data for the study. The instrument was subjected to face and content validation by experts - Technical College teachers with specialization in electrical/electronics and three lecturers, one from Measurement and Evaluation unit of Educational Foundation and two from technology and vocational education (Electrical/electronics option from Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka; subsequently to obtain the reliability coefficient, a trial test was conducted on the technicians registered with National Directorate of Employment, Taraba State.  A reliability index of 0.88 was obtained using the Cronbach’s Alpha procedure. The instrument was administered and data were collected in-situ. The data obtained were analysed using mean values to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed 167 practical tasks for inclusion in the self-help guide. The study also revealed that there was a significant difference in the performance of newly recruited NDE apprentices who used and those who did not use the self-help guide for practical repair and maintenance during the experiment. It was recommended that the self-help guide should be adopted for use by users of electrical appliances in homes to mitigate high cost of engaging professional repairers.