Effect of Guided Inquiry-Based Learning on Senior Secondary II Students’ Academic Achievement in Computer Studies in Owerri Education Zone, Imo State

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of Guided Inquiry Learning on Senior Secondary II students’ academic achievement in computer studies in Owerri Education Zone, Imo State. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design with pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group with a population of 9,815 SSII Computer Studies students in 78 public secondary schools in Owerri Education Zone I. The sample of the study comprise of 180 SSII Computer Studies students drawn from four Secondary Schools in Owerri education zone I, Imo State (100 students from two schools in the urban and 80 students from two schools in the rural). Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 significant levels. Data were collected using Computer Studies Achievement Test (CSAT) of 41 items. The instrument was subjected to face and content validation by three experts. The reliability of CSAT instrument was carried out using Kudder Richardson (K-R20) formula to determine the internal consistency which yielded an index of 0.70. The data collected during the pre-test and post-test administration was statistically analyzed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) for the null hypotheses while mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. The study revealed that guided inquiry based method has significant increasing effect on students’ academic achievement in Computer Studies, while gender has no significant effect on students’ academic achievement in computer studies. The study recommended, among others, that Computer Studies teachers should be encouraged to use guided inquiry-based learning in the teaching of Computer Studies.