EFFECTS OF MULTIMEDIA APPLICATION ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

The performance of agricultural science students is consistently low as seen in their external examinations. This could be attributed to the poor teaching methods, materials and techniques applied in teaching the subject. This study determined the multimedia application effects on the academic achievement of Agricultural science students. It adopted a mixed-method design. All the students and teachers of Agricultural science in secondary schools in Enugu State, Nigeria formed the population but six schools with 583 students and teachers of agriculture formed the sample. Students’ Academic Achievement Test in Agricultural Science (SAATAS) and Convenience Teaching Method Questionnaire (CTMQ) were used to collect data. Mean, ANCOVA and Friedman's test were used for data analyses. Results indicated that students instructed using multimedia significantly performed higher than the students instructed using the conventional teaching method. The performance of males was not different from that of the females. The interaction between the teaching media and gender had a non-significant effect on the academic achievement of students. Moreover, teachers adopted note-taking, lecture, demonstration and project methods but did not use multimedia in teaching. Teachers of agriculture accepted that inconsistent power supply, poor network connectivity, and non-availability of computers, among others, were the problems hindering them from using multimedia in teaching. Keywords: academic achievement, mixed method design, multimedia, agricultural science, teaching and learning