Effects of two instructional strategies on achievement in library use instruction among secondary school students with hearing impairment in Oyo State, Nigeria

Hearing impairment limits individual in acquiring skills to become active and independent learners. It is therefore important to use adapted media in teaching people with hearing impairment skills to access and use information. These media are lacking in schools that provide integration services to learners with hearing impairment and this adversely affects the acquisition of lifelong skills like library use skills by the learners. There is also a dearth of research on library services to persons with hearing impairment in Nigeria. Against this background, this study investigated the effects of Captioned Video and Direct Instructional strategies on achievement of secondary school students with hearing impairment in library use instruction.

The study adopted the pretest-posttest, control group quasi-experimental research design with a 3x2 factorial matrix. It involved a total of 39 Senior Secondary School II students with hearing impairment in three randomly selected schools in Oyo State. Using the intact class method, the schools were randomly assigned to experimental group I, II and the control. While experimental groups I and II were exposed to Captioned Video Instruction and Direct Instruction on library use respectively, the control group was given instruction on various professions they could take up after graduation. Treatment for the groups took seven weeks after the pre-test. Two instruments were used for the study: Library Use Instruction Test (r=0.91) and Library Practical Use Checklist (r=0.80). Library Use Instruction Test measured the intellectual achievement of participants while Library Practical Use Checklist measured their practical achievement. Nine hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data collected were analysed using t-test and Analysis of Covariance.

There was a significant difference in the achievement of the experimental and control groups (F (2, 36) =10.26; p<0.05). The Captioned Video Instruction group had the highest posttest mean score (x= 24.50) followed by the Direct Instruction group (x=23.09) while the Control group had the least posttest mean score (x=17.45). Treatment had significant effect on the achievement of participants in practical skill test (F (2, 32), 6.48, p<0.05), but not on their performance in intellectual achievement test. There was no significant interaction effect of instructional strategies and gender on the achievement of participants. There were no significant differences in