ABSTRACT

This study investigated the application of Information and Communication Technology on senior secondary school students’ academic achievement in English Language in Ebonyi State.  The design of the study was a quasi-experimental design with pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group using three intact classes. The objectives were to find out the mean achievement scores of students taught English language using ICT facilities and those students taught with mere verbal description of the same English language lesson as well as effect of gender and school location on mean achievement scores of students in English language. Four null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significant. The population of this study comprised of eight thousand three hundred and forty (8,340) Senior Secondary School II (SSS II) students selected from all 77 public secondary schools in Abakaliki Education Zone. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 3 public secondary schools.  The instrument used for data collection was English Language Achievement Test (ELAT) consisting of 36-multiple choice test items. Data were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer all research questions and Analysis of Co-variance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses. The results of the analysis revealed that students who were taught English language using ICT-based instructional method performed better than those taught with lecture method. Urban and rural school students taught English language performed significantly different. Gender had no significant effect on the academic achievement of students taught English language using ICT-based instructional method and those students taught using mere verbal description of the same English language lesson and there was an interaction effect of gender and ICT-based instructional method. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended among others, that State and Federal ministry of education as policy makers in secondary schools should infuse ICTs as a core component of teaching methods in the curricula of senior secondary schools in order to reduce the poor academic performance of students in English language.