Effect of Visual Instructional Materials (using Pictures, Charts and Diagrams) and Chemistry Students' Academic Achievement in the Concept Periodic Table in Ikono Local Government Area

This research determined effect of visual instructional materials (using pictures, charts and diagrams) on Chemistry students' academic achievement in the concept periodic table in Ikono Local Government Area. The research adopted pretest posttest quasi experimental design. The population of the study was 1,693 senior secondary school two (SS2) students. 160 students were purposively sampled from four public secondary co-educational schools in Ikono Local Government Area. Four research questions and four null hypotheses
guided the study. Visual instructional materials of pictures, charts and diagrams were used as treatment for the experimental groups while the control group were instructed using lectures. A validated instrument, Chemistry Achievement Test on Periodic table with a reliability of 0.94 was used for data collection. The reliability coefficient of the Pearson product moment correlation. Data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and independent t-test statistics. The analyzed data showed a significant difference between students'
achievement mean scores taught periodic table using visual instructional materials and those taught without pictures, charts and diagrams, as students' performance exposed to visual instructional materials were applaudable than those taught without. The study also found no significant difference in the achievement scores of both male and female students exposed to visual instructional materials. The study recommended that teacher education institutions in Nigeria should emphasize more on the use of pictures, charts and diagrams in Chemistry teaching to the Chemistry teachers in training and that school administrators while carrying out their duties of instructional supervisions should not forget to reiterate more on the use of visual instructional materials (pictures, charts and diagrams) in the teaching of Chemistry.