Gender Differences in the Achievement and Retention of Nigeria Students Exposed to Concept in Electronic Works Trade through Reflective Inquiry Instructional Technique

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the gender differences in the achievement and retention of Nigerian students exposed to concepts in electronic works trade through reflective inquiry. The pre-test, post-test, non-equivalent control group, quasi-experimental research design was adopted. The study was carried out in Lagos State. 43 students constituted the subjects in the experimental group and 62 students constituted the subjects in the control group for the study. Two research questions and two null hypotheses, tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The instrument for data collection was Electronic Work Trade Achievement Test (EWTAT).The instrument was subjected to face validation by five experts in Vocational teacher education and Electronic technology. The EWTAT was tested in trial to determine its psychometric indices and reliability coefficients. The EWTAT reliability coefficient was 0.83 using Kuder-Richardson’s estimate formula. Mean was used to answer the research questions; while ANCOVA was employed to test the hypotheses. This study revealed that the mean score of boys was higher than the mean score of girls taught Electronic works trade using reflective inquiry instructional technique, but the mean score of girls was higher than that of the boys in the test for retention of learning. Consequently, the researchers recommended that Technical College teachers should adopt the use of the reflective inquiry instructional technique to the teaching of Electronic works trade and Ministry of education and administrators of Technical Colleges should always organize seminars, conferences and workshops to sensitize technical teachers on the use of instructional technique.