EFFECT OF MENTORING INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACH ON STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN OGOJA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study ascertained the effect of mentoring instructional approach on students’ interest in financial accounting in secondary schools in Ogoja Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. Three research questions and hypotheses guided the study. Quasi experimental design involving treatment and control groups was used in the study. The population of the study comprised 675 financial accounting students in 15 senior secondary schools in Ogoja of which a sample of 200 students in four intact classes were selected. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the four schools and simple random sampling was used to select the schools into two groups (control and experimental). Financial Accounting Interest Inventory (FAII) was used for data collection. The instrument was tested for reliability using Cronbach Alpha coefficient which yielded 0.84. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and ANCOVA to test the hypotheses. Results indicated that students taught using mentoring instructional approach show more interest in learning financial accounting than those taught using the conventional approach; mentoring instructional approach has no significant difference on the mean interest score of male and female students in financial accounting and there was no interaction effect on gender. Results further indicated that there is significant difference in the mean interest scores of students taught financial accounting using mentoring and those taught using the conventional method. There is no significant difference in the mean interest scores of male and female students taught financial accounting using mentoring as a teaching method and there is no significant interaction effect of instructional approach and gender on the mean interest scores of students in financial accounting. The educational implication of the study is that students’ interest can be arouse when they are care for and are supported in the learning process. It was recommended that mentoring teaching approach should be adopted in the teaching of financial accounting due to its effectiveness in enhancing students’ interest in the subject