Advance organisers, students’ achievement and retention of educational technology concepts at the University of Calabar

Abstract

This study examined the effects of expository and graphic organizers on students’ achievement and retention of educational technology concepts. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The research design used for the study was the pre-test post-test groups design. The population comprised all the 112 year 3 students in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Faculty of Education, University of Calabar during the 2018/2019 academic session. The sample was constituted of all the 112 students in their intact class using the census technique. The instrument used for the study was the Educational Technology Achievement Test. A test- re-test method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument and an index of 0.80 was obtained using Kuder Richardson Four Formulae. Data collected were analysed using Mean, Standard Deviation and Analysis of Covariance. All hypotheses were tested at 0. 05 level of significance. The results indicated that students taught using graphics advance organizers performed and retained significantly better educational technology concepts than those taught using expository organizers. The findings of this study also indicated that cognitive ability of students had no effects on the achievement of educational technology students when taught using expository and graphics organizers. It was concluded that graphic advance organizers significantly enhance students’ achievement and retention, and both advance organizers enhanced performance of students with different ability levels.