ABSTRACT

This study examined the effect of guided autonomy instructional technique on undergraduate students achievement and motivation in Introduction to Philosophy and Logic. The study adopted a quasi-experimental non-equivalent pre-test-post-test control group design involving one experimental and one control group. The population of the study consists of 8520 year one undergraduate students from two Public Universities in Imo State. The sample size for the study is 350. Six research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Two instruments used for data collection were researcher-made Introduction to Philosophy and Logic Achievement Test and Philosophy Students Motivation Scale. The instruments were validated by three experts. To ensure content validity of the Introduction to Philosophy and Logic Achievement Test (IPLAT), a table of specification was designed for the test. The IPLAT was trial-tested to determine its psychometric indices and reliability coefficient. Its internal consistency reliability coefficient was determined using the K-R0 (Kuder Richardson) procedure and this yielded a K-R20 estimate of 0.91. The internal consistency of the Philosophy Students Motivation Scale (PSMS) was established using Cronbach Alpha reliability method, and an estimate of 0.72 was obtained. Mean and Standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses. The findings of the study showed that exposing undergraduate students to guided autonomy instructional technique significantly enhanced their achievement in Introduction to Philosophy and Logic. Using guided autonomy instructional technique increased undergraduate students’ motivation in Introduction to Philosophy and Logic. Gender has no significant influence on both achievement and Motivation of undergraduate students in Introduction to Philosophy and Logic. There is significant interaction effect of gender and guided autonomy instructional technique on undergraduate students’ achievement in Introduction to Philosophy and Logic. There is significant interaction effect of gender and instruction in guided autonomy instructional technique on undergraduate students’ motivation in Introduction to Philosophy and Logic. Based on these findings, conclusions were drawn and the educational implications were extensively discussed. Among the recommendations made were: Teachers should expose undergraduate students to the use of guided autonomy instructional technique by giving them opportunity to practice the technique and gain mastery of it. Teachers themselves should be taught the guided autonomy instructional technique. The guided autonomy instructional technique could be incorporated into teacher-training programme.