Relative Effectiveness of Demonstration and Project-Based Teaching Methods in Developing Students' Psychomotor Skill and Interest in Electrical Installation and Maintenance Work

Abstract

The need to equip technical education students with psychomotor skills for gainful employment on graduation necessitated the study to determine the relative effectiveness of demonstration and project-based teaching methods in developing students' psychomotor skill and interest in electrical installation and maintenance work in technical colleges in Anambra State. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The quasi-experimental, specifically, pre-test, post-test non-equivalent research design was adopted for the study. Population comprised 343 National Technical Certificate 11 (NTC) students offering electrical installation and maintenance work in the twelve technical colleges in Anambra State. Purposive sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 80 students from two colleges based on schools that have good number of male and female students. Psychomotor Skill Performance Test in Electrical Installation and Maintenance Work (PSPTEIMW) and Interest Inventory Scale on Electrical Installation and Maintenance (IISEIMW) were used to collect data for the study. The PSPTEIMW has been validated by test developers in the National Business and Technical Examination Board while IISEIMW was face validated by experts in the field of technical education. A pilot study was used to establish the reliability of the instruments by administering them to 30 NTC II students of government technical college Okporo, Orlu in Imo state who were not part of the population of the study. Internal consistency of the instruments was determined using Cronbach Alpha technique and reliability coefficient values of 0.82 and 0.80 respectively were obtained. Data collected from the study were analyzed using arithmetic mean to answer the research questions while the hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the two methods improved students' psychomotor skill development and interest in electrical installation and maintenance work but project-based teaching method was slightly more effective. There was significant difference in the psychomotor skill development and interest scores of students based on the teaching methods.  Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that use of demonstration and project-based teaching methods by technical teachers will lead to an improvement in students' psychomotor skill development and interest in the trade. It was, therefore, recommended among others that technical teachers should adopt the two  methods but use  project-based teaching method to enhance students' psychomotor skills development in relevant trades to equip them for gainful employment on graduation.