Impact of Language Laboratory and Instructional Material on Students’ Academic Achievement in English Language in Imo State: Moderating Impact of Mother Tongue

Abstract

The study investigated Impact of language laboratory and instructional materials on students’ academic achievement in English language in Imo State: Moderating impact of mother tongue. The researchers posed two research questions and formulated two null hypotheses. The design of the study was quasi experimental design. The population of the study was 4033 senior secondary school students whereas the sample size of the study was 120 SS2 students. Two adopted instruments were used in data collection namely: 40 multiple objective tests extracted from a teacher made test assessment in Igbo Language which served as the pre-test scores (TMGT). The second instrument was another 40 multiple objective tests extracted from WASC (2022) senior secondary school certificate examination. The validity of the two instruments was determined by three specialists from the Faculty of Education, Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education, Owerri Imo State. The reliability of the second instruments was determined over time being adopted instrument from West African examination Council. The teacher made test scores for the pre-test has a reliability coefficient of 0.73. The findings of the research study were that: students in the treatment group who scored higher in Igbo Language assessment test also performed excellently well in English Language achievement test. The participants in control group with low scores in Igbo Language at pretest performed poorly in English Language achievement test. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that government should make Igbo Language compulsory in senior and junior secondary schools in Nigeria.