Asynchronous Instructional Medium and Academic Performance of Senior Secondary two Physics Students in Abak Local Government Area

Abstract

The study's objective was to find out the effects of the asynchronous instructional medium on the academic performance of senior secondary two (SS-II) physics students in Abak. Three purposes, three research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design. The population of the study comprises 670 SS II physics students in Abak. A sample size of 100 respondents was selected using a Simple random sample technique of balloting to choose two intact classes in urban and rural schools. Facebook was used as an asynchronous learning medium for the experimental group, the control group was taught with an expository method. An instrument named Physics Performance Test was used for data collection. Three experts validated the instrument. Using the split-half method, a reliability coefficient of 0.78 and 0.85 were obtained using Person product-moment correlation and Spearman brown test respectively. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer research questions while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study indicated that the academic performance of physics students taught with expository method is significantly better than those taught with asynchronous medium, female students exposed to asynchronous learning medium performed significantly better than their male counterparts and urban students exposed to asynchronous learning medium performed significantly better than their rural counterpart. Therefore, it was recommended that Physics teachers should utilise flexible teaching methods like asynchronous learning mediums to checkmate overcrowded classrooms.