EFFECTS OF THE USE OF AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF COMPUTER IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF EBONYI STATE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

          We live in an age that is experiencing an ever-increasing use of computers in diverse areas of human endeavor. Computers offer great assistance in decision-making, operations control, modeling, simulation, automated manufacturing etc. The history of development shows that so far, no industrialized nation has been able to make it without the use of computers (Inyama, 2006).

          In education, computers are used in extremely versatile ways to aid the understanding of a wide variety of students. Computer science as a feature in secondary school curricular has been faced with some challenges. Over the years, students` response to computer science especially in public schools has been poor and the reason seems to be that   instructional materials specifically audio-visual materials may not have been used or properly utilized during instruction and this is a source of worry to the researchers considering its possible effects on students’ achievement in the subject. This stated problem has often been attributed to the effects of the use of instructional materials, specifically, (audio-visuals).

Meaningful learning is most likely to occur when information is presented in a potentially meaningful way that the information conveyed is made or presented in a way that the majority of what was taught remains permanent in the learners memory. Webster’s Encyclopaedia Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines Audio-Visual Aids as “training or educational materials directed at both the senses of hearing and the sense of sight, films, recordings, photographs, etc. used in classroom instructions, library collections or the likes”.

The term has also been defined by Dike, (2011) as; those materials which do not depend solely upon reading to convey meaning. They may present information through the sense of hearing as in audio resources, sight, as in visual resources or through a combination of senses. Indeed, the variety of such resources is a striking characteristic.

EFFECTS OF THE USE OF AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF COMPUTER IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF EBONYI STATE