EFFECTS OF e-CONTENT ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND RETENTION IN AUTOMOBILE LIGHTING SYSTEM IN TECHNICAL COLLEGES IN NIGER STATE

Abstract

This study determined the effects of e-content on students' achievement and retention in  automobile lighting system in technical colleges in Niger State. Distinctively, the study sought to identify the effect of e-content on students' mean achievement in automobile lighting system based on gender and retention in the automobile lighting system. Three research questions and two null hypotheses tested at (P< .05) level of significance guided the study. A quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was 203 TC II Motor Vehicle Mechanic (MVM) students; this consists of 197 boys and 6 girls. Two intact class made up of 64 TC II students in GTC Minna conventional teaching method and 139 TC II students in Sulaiman Barau Technical College (SBTC) Suleja were assigned to the e-content instruction method. The instrument used for data collection was the Automobile Lighting System Achievement Test (ALSAT). ALSAT was subjected to face and content validation by three experts in MVM from Industrial and Technology Education Department, Federal University of Technology Minna. ALSAT was trial-tested to determine their psychometric indices. A total of 20 items of ALSAT had good difficulty and discrimination indices. Kuder-Richardson (KR-20) was used in determining the reliability coefficient of ALSAT and it was found to be 0.86. Mean and the standard deviation were used in answering the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used in testing the null hypotheses. The study found out that e-content instructional strategy is more effective in improving students' achievement and retention in the automobile lighting system.  There was no effect of gender on students' achievement in the automobile lighting system. The study also found out that there are no significant interaction effects of methods and gender on technical college students' achievement and retention in the automobile lighting system. This implies that the effectiveness of the methods on technical college students' achievement and retention in automobile lighting system does not depend on gender. It was, therefore, recommended among others that, automobile teachers should adopt the use of e-content instructional strategy in the automobile lighting system. The e-content instructional strategy should be incorporated into the teaching of the automobile by the National Board for Technical Education as the board is responsible for standardization and harmonization of programmes in technical colleges.