EFFECT OF DEMONSTRATION TEACHING METHOD ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study determined effect of demonstration method of teaching on academic performance of Senior Secondary School Students' in agricultural science in Adamawa state. The study also determined how moderating variable like school location and gender affect students' academic performance in agricultural science. Five research questions and five null hypotheses guided this study. The study adopted Nonrandomized control group pretest-posttest quasi experimental design. The population of the study was 115,497students in Senior Secondary Schools (SSS II) who offered Agricultural Science subject in Adamawa State, Post Primary Schools Management Board, 2019. The sample size that was used for this study was 20 intact classes, four schools each zone, which consist of 769 Senior Secondary School (SSS II) Students (416 males and 353 females; 425 Urban and 344 Rural; 390 Demonstration and 379 lecture) who offer Agricultural Science subjects in Gombi, Numan, Mubi and Yola Education Zones of Adamawa State. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 20 co-educational Senior Secondary Schools in Adamawa State. The instrument that was used for data collection in this study was Agricultural Science Performance Test (ASPT) developed by the researcher. The instrument was validated by three experts and a reliability coefficient of 0.85 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha method. Mean was used to answer the five research questions while ANCOVA was used test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level significance. Findings of the study revealed that there is a difference between the mean performance scores of agricultural science students taught with demonstration method and those taught with lecture method in favour of demonstration method and there is a positive mean difference between the mean performance scores of male and female agricultural science students taught using demonstration method in favour of the males. The study recommended among others that secondary school teachers should integrate demonstration teaching strategy in teaching agricultural science to improve students’ academic performance, Adamawa State Ministry of Education should regularly organize workshops and seminars for urban and rural schools on teaching methods which will enable teachers to understand the effectiveness of demonstration teaching method in improving students’ academic performance in learning of agricultural science.