Influence of Instructional materials on Academic Achievement of Secondary School Students in Social Studies in South-west, Nigeria

Abstract

Instructional materials are resources that teacher uses to facilitate the teaching and learning process. Most good teachers appreciate the need for instructional materials in the teaching and learning process. However, permanent learning can take place only when pupils actively participate in a variety of learning activities that challenge them to think creatively. This study investigated the influence of instructional materials on the academic achievement of secondary school students in Social Studies in Southwest, Nigeria. The population consisted of 3,482 Junior Secondary 2 students and 36 Social Studies teachers were randomly selected from all Junior Secondary School 2 students and all JSS2 Social Studies teachers in South-west, Nigeria. Two research instruments –
Instructional Materials Questionnaire (IMQ)( =0.75)and Social Studies Achievement Test (SSAT) (=0.652)were developed and used for dta collection. Two research questions were formulated and answered. For data analysis, descriptive statistics of frequency, mean, percentages and standard deviation was used. The results showed that instructional materials can be improvised by teachers (3.39), instructional materials can be improvised with the use of local materials (3.31), instructional materials engender teaches’ effectiveness
(3.25), instructional materials makes a teacher vibrant (3.25), a teacher without instructional materials is incomplete (2.81), teaching without instructional materials is obsolete and futile (2.75), classroom lesson cannot be effective without the use of instructional materials” 2.58), teachers cannot teach well without instructional materials (2.36), many teachers use instructional materials just to please supervisors (2.25). Lastly, only government can provide instructional materials (1.58). The results also showed that there was significant relationship between the use of instructional materials and academic achievement of students in Social Studies (r = 0.62,
p <0.05). It can be concluded that the use of instructional materials can help teachers of Social Studies to perform better in teaching. It was suggested that teachers of Social Studies should make all efforts to use instructional materials in teaching and encourage students to get local materials in their environment