EFFECTS OF JIGSAW INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING

Abstract

The study investigated the effects of jigsaw instructional strategy on students’ academic achievement in financial accounting in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design, of pre-test, post-test, non-equivalent control group design. The population of the study comprised 3,482 Senior Secondary Two (SS2) students. Purposive sampling technique was used to select two schools comprising 98 students (51 students in control group and 47 students in experimental group) from two intact classes. The control group comprised 19 males and 32 females while the experimental group comprised 19 males and 28 females. The instrument for data collection was a 25-item multiple-choice Financial Accounting Achievement Test (FAAT). The face and content validity of the instrument were established by three experts, two from the Department of Business Education and one from Measurement and Evaluation unit, all from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20), which yielded a coefficient value of 0.86. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses. Findings revealed that jigsaw instructional strategy was more effective in enhancing students’ academic achievement in financial accounting when compared to the conventional lecture instructional strategy. Furthermore, a significant difference was found between the academic achievement of students taught financial accounting using Jigsaw strategy and those taught using the conventional lecture strategy. However, there was no significant difference between the mean achievement scores of male and female students taught financial accounting using Jigsaw instructional strategy. The study concluded that the integration of Jigsaw strategy into the teaching of financial accounting at the senior secondary school level holds considerable potential for improving students’ academic performance. Based on the findings of the study, the researchers recommended, among others that, financial accounting teachers should adopt jigsaw instructional strategy in the teaching and learning of financial accounting in order to improve the academic achievement of both male and female students in financial accounting.