Effects of Three Methods of Teaching Economics on Students’ Achievement in Secondary Schools in Imo State

Abstract

The researcher investigates the effects of three methods of teaching economics on students’ achievement in secondary schools in Imo State. The study adopted the quasi-experimental research design. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study consists a total of 94,412 students from 296 secondary schools in the six education zones in Imo State. The sample consisted of 97 senior secondary two (SS II) students who offer Economics. Purposive and cluster sampling techniques were used to draw the sample for this study. A researcher made instrument titled “a researcher developed achievement test titled, Economics Achievement Test (EAT). The (EAT) was used to elicit the academic achievement of students in Economics as a subject. The initial draft copies of the instrument were given to five specialists, three in economics education and two in measurement and evaluation. The content of the instrument was validated by experts in education measurement and evaluation and economics with a reliability co-efficient index of 0.87 obtained using Kudder-Richardson 20 statistic (K-R 20). This was considered adequate for the study. Students from the experimental groups were taught using lesson plans of problem solving and project teaching methods, while students for the control group were taught with lecture method of teaching. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that students that were taught economics using problem solving teaching method achieved significantly more than students that were taught economics using lecture teaching method and it was recommended that the use of problem solving teaching method in teaching have been found to enhance achievement in economics, therefore, teachers should employ this instructional method more in the teaching of the subject