THE IMPACT OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS ON TEACHING ECONOMICS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS (A CASE STUDY OF AKURE NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ONDO STATE)



ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to find out the impact of instructional materials on teaching Economics in secondary schools in Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State.  Problems affecting the impact of instructional materials on teaching Economics in secondary schools.  Were discussed these include inadequate instructional materials and inadequate usage of resources.  His study is therefore an attempt at investigating the dimension of those problems in secondary schools.  Questionnaire was used for the finding.  The finding revealed that the availability of instructional and improper usage of instructional materials based on these.  Some recommendation for further research to improve the teaching of economics among other subject in secondary schools were offered.  Government should make specific fund available to school for the purchase of some instructional materials and teaching Aids and economics teacher should note textbooks which is available to the students background culture and local examples should be used while teaching the subjects.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
CERTIFICATION
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1            Background of the study
1.2            Statement of the Problem
1.3            Objectives of the study
1.4            Research Question
1.5            Significance of the study
1.6            Scope of the study
1.7            Definition of Terms
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of Instructional Materials

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1            Research Design
3.2            Population of the study
3.3            Sample and Sampling Techniques
3.4            Research Instrument
3.5            Validity of the Instrument
3.6            Administration of Research Instrument
3.7            Data Analysis
CHAPTER FOUR
Results and Discussion
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1            Summary
5.2            Conclusion
5.3            Recommendation
REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1            Background to the study
Despina and Samaras 2001. The last two decades have brought about a dramatic change in instructional methods for general education and particularly for economics education.  These methods have challenged the traditional teacher – centred, blackboard – lecture, text and class relationship.  After as low development from the voice and vision broadcasting educational programs technology to the punched card mainframes, photocopies and overhead projectors there has been a geometric growth of electronics technology with micro computers, personal computers, interactive and multimedia CD-ROMs, the Internet and intranets, and the World Wide Web with its online simulations and interactive multimedia Web – based courses and virtual classes.  All these innovations claim to have the potential to revolutionize the educational process.  Their effectiveness, however, has still to be established in educational research.
The fact that economics education as a discipline relies very heavily an quantitative, graphical and simulation – game type aspects lead to the immediate adoption of these innovations with the USA, UK and French educational system having the lead in the beginning of the 70s and the Greek educational system slowly following in the mid 80s (Bousiou and Isopoglou, 2001).  Research carried out at the time was basically in the use of mainframes and concluded that positive result were very limited.  A large amount of educational software was produced in the 80s to support economic education and economist, introducing the notion of computer aided simulations/Games and Drill and practice software.  Researchers held different views about the effectiveness of computer aided learning software for economic education.  Although several research papers pointed to the positive effect of the kind of software (Davies and Crowther 1995), the general beliefs was that “… they may cover the content – but not in the most imaginative way.  Students need to be sufficiently motivated and interested to learn economics from the computer screen and this kind of software is unlikely to change the character of the text dominated courses that have resisted change for 30 years” (Yahoo D.L. and Walstad W.B, 1990).  Although the effectiveness of the use of micro and personal computers for economic education is still to be proven, it seems that classroom lectures, textbooks and material library referencing continue to resist and constitute the largest part of the learning process.
In the last decade the Internet has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing the learning process.  Particularly for economic education.  Agarwal and Day (1998) supported that Internet implementation in economics courses has a positive impact on three crucial are: (a) Student learning and retention of concepts, (b) Student perceptions of instructor effectiveness and (c) attitudes toward economics.  The internet with its multiple services, online simulations, and interactive multimedia Web – based courses is being used both to supplement and enrich the traditional way of teaching economics with district applications such as e-mail, HP, etc (Maaning, 1996) as well as to provide complete learning experiences in the form of virtual classes.  Due to its structure, the World Wide Web (and the internet in general) has been proposed as a powerful environment to support student – centered instruction, facilitating instructional methods that focus on constructivism, active learning, collaborative learning and individualized learning (Wiemi and Gooler, 1987; Massy and Zemsky, 1995; sell, 1996; Tait, 1997).
Lagging behind the USA and European systems, the Greek educational system experimentally joined this cycle of development in the mid 80’s when information technology had already become widespread and relatively inexpensive.  Today with the even larger decreases in the costs of using new technologies for students, teachers and institutions, a challenge is offered to state officials, educational institutions, economic educators, private software producers and published to provide all those innovative means and methods that will allow both students as well as the general public to become computer and business economics literate while assisting in the slud of the discipline of economics (Bousiou and Tsopoglou, 2001).
There is no teaching when learning is not taking place and in order that meaningful learning may take place, there is need for the use of teaching aids as much as possible.
It is the ideal thing to teach, from concrete to the abstracts from the seen to the unseen, from the known to the unknown.  Teaching aids should not only be taken as concrete materials.  They also include all illustrative materials used to get meaning into learning teaching aids comprise a set of tools ranging from the locally constructed materials and usually of cheap materials to the highly complicated and expensive machines.
In spite of language barriers all parties involved are in a better position than ever to develop or adapt state – of – the – art economics – business education technology, at a “principle” level and produce hypertext manuals, problem and data sets, simulation – game material, case studies, role playing and electronic referencing within local national and international networks.  These instructional tools within an electronically networked environment could recast established notions and structures of learning as “teacher, lecture, group, individual, classroom, home, library” and rearrange their relationship and relative importance in more creative, exciting and effective ways.
Drawing from our research of existing, innovative instructional methods for teaching Economics (Bousiou, Samara and Tahmatzidou, 2000), we attempt to describe and classify the latest technological solutions.  We have separated them into two categories, distinguishing between technologies that need little technical expertise in the part of the teacher and those, which require either particular technical knowledge and skills, server access, and/or the support of an educational institution.  While the power of these platforms, compared to more traditional methods of instruction in delivering course content, is largely discussed in literature (Sosm, 1997; Daniel, 1991; Stone, 1999, reports on formal assessments of the effectiveness of electronic education are either rare or are still providing early results (Meyer, Bandan and Niessen, 1996; Zywno and Kennedy, 2000).  A study carried out by Kadiyala and Crynes provided convincing evidence that new technologies can indeed enhance learning when the pedagogy is sound, and when there is a good match of technology, techniques and objectives (Kadiyala and Crynes, 1998).  Their research reported supisingly few studies staling neutral or negative results.  However, there is a need for further research to substantiate claims about positive impact of new technologies on learning outcomes.
1.2            Statement of the problem
Today as a result of introduction of 6- 3-3-4 system of education in Nigeria. Which leads to the addition of new topic in the curriculum content of economics in secondary school.
Teaching of economics in secondary schools are faced with the problem of students failure in both WAEC and NECO examination
Another problem faced with the teaching of economic in secondary schools is that student learning and retention of concept is very low.
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