AVAILABILITY AND USE OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY MATERIALS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING OF CHEMISTRY IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN OWERRI EDUCATION ZONE.

Abstract

The study investigated availability and use of educational technology materials in the teaching and learning of Chemistry in Secondary Schools in Owerri education zone. It is no longer news that educational technology materials are put into use in our secondary schools as we are now in computer age, yet some teachers pay non-challant attitude to using some of such materials. Moreover, some of such materials may not be available in most schools for use and when they are available the Chemistry teacher may not have been using them and thus the study is to find out if such materials are available in use in teaching and learning of Chemistry. Three research questions guided the study. Survey design technique was adopted for this study with researcher’s made questionnaire for data collection. The targeted population was 171 Chemistry teachers. 50 Chemistry teachers were selected through a simple random sampling. The instrument for data collection was the researchers structured questionnaire. The face and content validity were established by three experts. The instrument was subjected to trail testing to ascertain the reliability. The reliability of the instrument was obtained by administering 20 copies to a school which was outside the sampled schools. The stores obtained from the test were analysed using Cronbach's Alpha. A reliability index of 0.75 was obtained indicating that the instrument was reliable for the study. Data collected was analysed using mean with standard deviation and t-test. The findings of the work revealed that the teachers’ accepted that the educational technology materials are available to low extent availability and the educational materials are slightly utilized in the urban and rural schools by the teachers. It is therefore recommended that the government should consider schools in rural areas and provide adequate educational technology materials for the enhancement of teaching and learning. The schools in these areas should be visited often by the education authority to profer solutions to their needs.