EFFECT OF BLENDED LEARNING ON PERFORMANCE AND RETENTION OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE, IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effects of blended learning on performance and retention of senior secondary school students in English Language in Kaduna State. To give purpose, direction to the study, four objectives, four research questions and four hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The diverse views of other related literatures (concepts, theory and empirical studies) were reviewed. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test, post- test, control group design. The participants of the study consist of 61 males and 111 females

(172) students sampled from the SSII stream of two schools, Government Day Secondary School Rigachikun was the experimental group, located in the rural area of the state, while Government Secondary School Unguwan Sarki was the control group, located in the urban area. Purposive sampling technique was used to select intact classes used for the study. Two instruments were developed to guide the study. Blended Learning Package (BLP) a teacher-directed interactive instructional package which contains lessons structured in accordance with SSII, English Language syllabus particularly for 2nd and 3rd term. Blended Learning Package contains the following topics Sentence Structure, Letter Writing, Comprehension and phonology in conformity with the Nigeria Senior Secondary School curriculum. While English Language Achievement Test (ELAT) instrument is a 40-item, Multiple-choice objective test instrument with four options a-d, to which the students responded to or before (i.e. as a pre-test) and after treatment (using Blended Learning Package), it was designed to measure specific learning outcomes related to the contents of the study as contained in (BLP) and were validated using the context form of validation, by Experts in ABU, Lecturers in the Department of Foundation and Curriculum. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while inferential statistics of independent

sample t-test was used to analyze the hypotheses using SPSS IBM version 20. 0.05 level of significance was used as the basis for which the hypotheses was rejected or not rejected.

The findings indicate that technology does not enhance learning until it is supported by those conditions of learning such as factual information and learners‟ cognitive skills, especially the learners‟ ability to read, write, recall past experience and relate to new information. It recommended that for effective teaching and learning, teachers at all levels must be encouraged and trained to ensure learners acquire the essential, rudiments and skills of reading and writing, this is necessary for effective teaching and learning in all disciplines with or without technology.