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.
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