CHAPTER ONE
- Introduction
There has been an increasing attempt by educationists and psychologists over the years to look for ways of enhancing educational achievement of students. Many studies have been carried out to show that among other things, the use of instructional materials enhance students’ academic performance in Biology. Eddie (2001) has shown that the use of instructional materials assist teachers to achieve optimum results in their teaching. These instructional materials can be combined with teaching methods to ensure effective learning. Students tend to remember more of what they see than listening without seeing hence develops good attitudes for the lesson. Attitude according to Ojo (2007) is defined as a relatively long lasting organism of a person’s belief, feelings and behaviours toward other people, situations or objects. These attitudes could be positive or negative. An attitude has led students to admire and study a subject is seen as positive while those that lead students to dislike it portray negative attitudes (Udoma, 2003).
Piaget as cited in Eneh and Nkang (2001) in postulating his theory of cognitive development has shown that students in secondary schools function on the concrete operational stage of mental development. One of the characteristics of students at this stage of development is that, they hardly remember except taught in concrete form. It is when learning experience are made in concrete form that students can remember what they learnt. One way of making learning experience concrete is by using instructional materials (Onwuka, 1981).
Obot (1992) showed in a separate study that when in a separate materials are used in teaching; motivation of students is enhanced by generating participation in the lesson. Motivation therefore through the use of suitable instructional materials play important role in students’ academic performance. It increases the attention and interest as well as intention of students to learn, without which little or no learning takes place (Miller, 2003).
Similarly, in teaching Biology to students, things that are too far can be brought nearer to them in drawing or photographs. Also events and processes which cannot be observed, either because they are too fast or too slow can be made clearly observable through the use of instructional materials. Therefore, students are excited and eager to learn those concepts that would have been difficult for them to understand if instructional materials were not used. Ekong (2003) considered instructional materials as indispensable instructional components that improve the productivity of teachers in their instructional role performance. The role of instructional materials in the teaching-learning situation according to Ekong (2003) include:
- Making instructions easy to understand
- Making instructions interesting to students
- Stimulating and sustaining students’ interest
- Facilitating internationalization of concepts theories principle and skills by students
- Playing a key role in making possible practical and productive based instructions.
- Facilitating presentation of the content of learning in teacher led lessons.
- Encouraging students’ active participation rather than being passive listeners.
- Making learning experience integrative.
On theses bases, the intention of the researcher is to examine the extent to which instructional materials are utilized by teachers to facilitate students’ academic performance in Biology in secondary schools in Ukanafun Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
1.1 Statement of the Problem
The academic performance of secondary students especially in the internal and external Senior School certificate Examination (SSCE) in Biology has been on the decline for a decade. This can be attributed to inadequate use of instructional materials in teaching of Biology. Students have invariably had their imaginations stretched too far due to the teacher’s excessive use of words to convey meanings when instructional materials are not used. Students need a rich store of concrete sensory experience. Therefore, instructional materials become inevitable in the teaching-learning process in any learning environment and a major pre-requisite for effective teaching and learning of Biology. When instructional materials are not used for teaching, students find it difficult to understand the lesson and therefore learning does not take place thus, failure in SSCE Examination. This then bothers me to undertake these studies to find a way out for effective collection and utilization of instructional materials for effective teaching and learning of biology.
