EFFECTIVENESS OF ADAPTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND RETENTION IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY (STS)

Abstract

The study investigated the effectiveness of adaptive instructional strategy on undergraduate students‟ academic achievement and retention in science, technology and society at the faculty of Vocational and Science Education, University of Calabar, Nigeria. The study adopted non randomized, non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental research design. Two research questions and hypotheses guided the study. A total of 120 year three undergraduate students offering the course Science, technology and society at the faculty of Vocational & Science Education 2023/2024 academic session, University of Calabar made up the sample of the study. The instrument for data collection was a 30-item Science, Technology and Society Achievement Test (STSAT) administered as pretest, post test and retention test respectively. The reliability coefficient was ascertained using Kudar-Richardson‟s (KR-20) which yielded a coefficient of 0.84, and 0.86 respectively. Descriptive statistics was used to answer the research questions while hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The result of data analysis showed that students taught with adaptive instructional strategy outperformed their counterparts taught conventional method. Secondly, the use of adaptive instructional strategy significantly contributed to students‟ retention of science, technology &Society. It was recommended that lecturers should adopt the use of adaptive instructional strategy in teaching students at the higher level of education to enhance students‟ academic achievement and retention of concepts better.