EFFECT OF MASTERY LEARNING INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ON SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN GOVERNMENT IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

This study became necessary because of the search for more effective methods of teaching and learning Government. Thus, this study investigated the effect of mastery learning instructional strategy on secondary school students’ academic achievement in Government in Anambra State of Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level. A quasi-experimental, non-randomized control group design was utilized in the investigation. The population consists of 541 senior secondary school year two (SS2) Government students from 18 public secondary schools in Awka South L.G.A. A sample of 120 SS2 Government students were used for the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to select fifteen co-educational secondary schools and a simple random sampling technique by replacement was used to draw two schools out of the fifteen co-educational schools. The schools were assigned to serve as experimental and control groups using a toss of coin and intact classes were used. Government Achievement Test (GAT) was validated and used as instrument for data collection. The reliability coefficient of 0.89 was established for GAT using Kuder Richardson 20 (K-R 20). The experimental group was taught the concepts of Organs of Government, Presidential system of Government, Parliamentary system of Government and Monarchy system of Governmentusing Hsien Mastery Learning Instructional Strategy (HMLIS) for six weeks while the control group was taught the same concepts with Conventional Lecture Method (CLM). Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that HMLIS was more effective in enhancing the students’ academic achievement in Government than the CLM. There was a significant difference in the academic achievement of Government students due to gender. It was also found that there is no significant interaction effect of teaching methods and gender on the academic achievement of students in Government. It was recommended among others that mastery learning instructional strategy should be used by the Government and other subject teachers at large to enhance gender equality and to discourage gender stereotyping in teaching and learning of school subjects.